It is a bootleg, but not of the preview that's at the end of FotR... the preview appended to the first installment is much longer.
This is the trailer that's going to be attached to the new Austin Powers movie (as theonering.net speculates), but it looks like it's been leaked a bit early. I imagine it'll go up on apple's site in higher quality once it's officially released.
Unfortunately I think you're missing/misunderstanding my point in a lot of ways.
You said, "You seem to stress on the fact that the guy should have been denied the award just because he stole a few small things and lied?"
Yes indeed. I am stressing that. He stole lots of smoke detectors from a summer camp. He lied a lot. The Eagle Scout Award is not one given for scientific achievment. It's given for completing specific requirements, public service, and maintaining a certain level of character. It's not a, "well, you did an impressive feat, have an award," thing. It's not supposed to be like a honorary Oscar.
Second, if all he did was risk his own health, I would be far less critical. But with the experiments he was doing, he was putting the health of the community in danger (sort of anti-public service). A good scientist needs to have a sense of ethics. Yes, I agree that risk is inherent in new discovery, etc. but there is such a thing as acceptable risk. There's a reason the Space shuttle launches from a thin peninsula. Dave, at least from what I know and have read after the fact, did not even consider what effects his experiments might have on others. This was a serious lapse in judgement. This is why what I say was "really dumb," not to say that what he did didn't take hard work and dedication. But, IMHO, it was seriously misguided.
You also say, You cannot hope to build a rocket without risking it crashing somewhere. If that's the case, then most of the world's greatest scientists are idiots by your scale.
Since when did Stephen Hawking risk anyone's life? Brian Greene? Your statement here is silly, I'm afraid. See above section about acceptable risk. And I find your use of three exclamation points in the section I have not quoted inflamatory;-).
Finally, you say that "When all is said and done, he's one smart dude." I guess this really depends on your definition of 'smart.' He did try to do something impressive, if dangerous, with at least a fair amount of chemistry knowledge at his disposal. I could give him the benefit of the doubt, and say that in conversations I had with him he feigned less knowledge than he had to make me feel like I could help him out, but I don't think that was the case. Maybe he advanced quickly shortly thereafter, and read a lot of books. In any case, there is a difference between knowledge and wisdom. And smart people can still do really stupid things.
This story has personal relevance for me. My brother and I were in the same Boy Scout troup as David Hahn, and went to high school with him. He's two years older than me, I believe, and one year younger than my brother. He briefly served as Senior Patrol Leader; I believe my Totin' Chit (knife certification card) was signed by him.
One of the things I've noticed about all the articles I've read about him, is that they seem to give him credit for too much competence. On more than one occasion he showed up at a scout meeting with his eyebrows missing and his face red and burned from something gone awry. He used to pull me aside and tell me that he had Americanium in his pocket, at which point I would tell him he was probably making himself sterile, which he would shrug off. This is not good science by any means.
He would ask my brother chemistry questions, and (after my brother stopped coming to meetings) he would ask me for advice about chemicals, reactions, nuclear power, etc (I, who was two years his junior and yet to take high school chemistry). We knew about some of his experiments, but in a lot of ways assumed he was exaggerating. And we didn't know the extent to which he had lied and swindled to obtain his supplies. We didn't know until we saw the report about the EPA on the news, cleaning up a backyard shed and thought, "Good God, that must be Dave..."
I've given several interviews with an author who was apparently working on a full length book on Dave at various times as an undergrad, but I don't know if the book ever saw the light of day. Between the EPA incident and his joining the navy, my dad and I ran into him at the local Kroger where he was a stock boy (or something). His skin color was bright orange. He was experimenting with artificial tanning, and babbled on in pseudo-science talk about trying to permanently modify his skin color. ?! And last I heard he was a helmsman on the carrier Enterprise (though that was a few years ago, now).
Several things frustrate me about this whole story: 1) That he still made Eagle Scout. The Board of Review for advancement in Rank is composed of senior leaders of the troop; they are supposed to judge a candidate and, if they aren't satisfied, can refuse him the rank if they find him not meeting character requirements, etc. (what with the lying, cheating, etc, one would think Dave did not). But politics on local and notional board levels has contributed to what I consider dilution of the award in more cases than this (note, I'm not an eagle scout myself, i'm just arguing on principle).
2) What he did was really, really stupid and dangerous. This is not an inspiring tale of a brilliant young man, but a cautionary tale of how a little knowledge and not much common sense can cause lots of trouble.
3)This gets publicity for years, but legitimate science by young people is often overlooked.
Sigh. I'll end my rant now. But I get frustrated everytime I see this story come up yet again.
-Wombat.
too dismayed for a sig.
(Dave, if you're somehow reading this, I'm sorry, but what you did was dumb)
Interesting that you call Psychology an Arts major...seems to me it's clearly a social science.
Anyway, let's switch our analogy for a minute and look at a fine arts class: someone who wants to sculpt but doesn't have the basic skills (or a natural affinity) is going to have a hell of a hard time in a sculpting class. Someone without a natural affinity (or the basic skills, or who doesn't want to put in the time) for Calc 2 is gonna have a hard time in that class.
I found all of my theatre classes easier in a lot of ways than my physics classes (especially stat mech, damn the man), and frequently more fun, but that doesn't mean I didn't work hard in them. If something's easy for you and you still work hard at it, then you do a superior job instead of an adequate job.
Let's not devalue arts majors as easier or of less intrinsic value out of hand just cause we feel we've been beating ourselves up with our techie stuff.
-Wombat (and this is still on topic; important thoughts to take with you to college...;-) )
We give them a fancy name and call them Kinesiology majors...;-)
But ours still have to take anatomy classes and whatnot, so maybe it's different.
Nonetheless... Even though professional sports people don't do much "work" they do exert a lot of effort into what they do. Just cause it's a game doesn't mean it's all fun and ga... crap. I'll shut up now. You may have a point.
I guess I'll say that while there are certainly some majors which encourage the "slack," in many ways, you get out of college what you put into it, no matter what your major.
I think you're spot on; definitely a Tower of Babel reference. And from the black cat I presume that they're hinting at hoping to receive early warnings about future disasters? A mixed metaphor and a little peculiar to be sure, but it seems to make sense.
I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to differ with your statement that "Theatre Majors are the epitome of laziness." I think, as in any major, you get those who are dedicated and those who are slackers. Granted, perhaps a few more slackers end up in the theatre area because it's more subjective and there are fewer rigorous homework deadlines than in, say, Astrophysics.
From personal experience I and many of my friends have worked our asses off in our university's Theatre department. And that's what one has to be willing to do if one has a strong desire to be an artist professionally. The ones who slacked off will inevitably be waiting tables, while the hard workers at least have a fighting chance.
The first thing I did on Teoma was perform a vanity search as well. Here's how it stacked up for me:
1. Real Name, 2 permutations.
First I did a search on both Google and Teoma for the shortened version of my first name. On the first page of results for Google, my homepage shows up as the first hit and a piece of mail I submitted to Brunching Shuttlecocks as the second. A smattering of the remaining hits relate to me. On Teoma, the first hit was the Brunching Shuttlecocks mail, the second a page that links to me, and the third an old web based chemistry project. My homepage doesn't show up anywhere in the first couple pages of hits. With my full name on Google, the first hit is me, the second a graphic/web designer with the same name. Tehoma hits me a couple times tangentially on the first page, but nothing substantial.
2. Silly Web Title
I've used the phrase 'Wombat underground' as the silly title of my homepage since high school, so I was curious where it would show up. With Google the first three hits were right on the money. All me. With Tehoma the first, second and fourth hits are good, but it still didn't hit on my personal homepage.
3. E-mail search.
Searched for the string 'hungerf9.' Teoma found 5, google 110, all of which pointed to me.
It seems that, indeed, Google is still the reigning champion of the vanity search.
Your post actually is actually more culturally relevant than you might think. Gustave Courbet painted in 1866 a work entitled 'L'Origine du monde' (The origin of the world), which was a detailed painting of the nether parts of a human female. It was a private comission (some rich business guy wanted it), but raises the stakes on the old pornography or art question at a far earlier date than many might realize, besides the interesting commentary of the work's title. For the curious and over 18, you can view the painting at the Artchive
here.
Oh the things you learn in art history class.
-Wombat
Actually, your idea that newly evolved intelligent life will be there in a few billion years is probably a bit off.
As mentioned in the Odyssey mission objectives, "Mars today is far too cold with an atmosphere that is far too thin to support liquid water on the surface." Not an outright elimination of the possibility of intelligent life, but at least of intelligent life as we know it. The atmosphere is just way too thin, and things may only get worse on the surface from further bleed off without some form of intervention. I think the common view is that if there was higher (i.e., many cellular) life on mars, it was probably when back when the planet was warmer and wetter. Anything that might be left is likely barely eking out an existence in special environments.
And, in the few billion years you propose for intelligent life to evolve, the sun will have expanded to a red giant, and the surface of Mars will likely be nice and toasty. A bit too toasty perhaps for, again, life as we know it.
Finally, there's plenty of scientific value in studying Mars whether there's life there or not. The life issue is perhaps the most media friendly, and the one that most captures the pop cultural interest, but there's lots of other stuff to learn from that red rock.
This is offtopic, but I've got a couple of points:
1. You're making a big ol' blanket statement about Wayne State students, aren't you? Beware generalizations. After all, college is what you make it.
2. I'm not entirely sure what operator type thingy you're trying to get across with "e ta da tee." Presumably [something]/dt ?
3. It's a bit arrogant to assume you're more intelligent than someone just because they speak with a regional dialect, as you imply.
That's it for now. I'm out.
Wombat.
"Y end paranthesis X? NOW THAT'S FUNNY!" - Einstein in 'Picasso at the Lapin Agile'
A little odd that you should say this, since the actor doing the voice over in this new trailer is Sir Ian McKellan, who is most definitely English. Funny, that.
There are several problems inherent to having the system blow up a warhead when it's on its way back into the atmosphere. One prominent example, in the case of a biological weapon the toxic payload would then be spread over a much larger area, causing more overall death/destruction.
I've always looked up to Alec Guiness, first as a kid obsessed with Star Wars and later as one appreciative of his great acting ability. For anyone who would like to become more acquainted with the man he was, not only did he write a volume of official memoirs, but also two volumes of daily diaries filled with charming anecdotes about his life, his past, film, and the theatre. They are My Name Escapes me, and, published just last year, A Positively Final Appearance. I've read the first, but haven't yet gotten to the second.
In a sidenote, with Sir Alec we've lost the last of a generation of great thespians; first Olivier in '89, and Gielgud and Guiness this year. Where, I wonder, are the great actors to replace them?
Oddly enough, an orion engine is what was used in the movie Deep Impact to get the ship to the comet... though they didn't explain the technology behind it. Try The Bad Astronomer's site for more details....
The study done by the RIAA to determine the effects of napster on music sales had interesting results... From the cnet article:
'Nearly half of Napster users "described the nature of its impact on their music purchases in a way which either explicitly indicated or suggested that Napster displaces CD sales," the Field study said.'
So,in a pro Napster spin, this means that Less than Half of Napster users have purchased fewer CDs since using Napster. And the question was probably worded in such a way that there were many responses which could "suggest" that Napster displaces CD sales without really meaning it. Surveys mean whatever you want them to mean.
I think instead of Cosmic Constant, you mean Einstein's Cosmological Constant. And if current speculations about the value of the Constant are correct, it would be essentially a repulsive gravitational force, or at least the closest analogue to it that we know of. *shrug* "Antigravity" has also been used in association with questionable research into gravity shielding. The fact remains that the definition of a word is dictated by its use, so while you're entitled to your opinion, everyone's gonna use it as they damn well please anyway. It's not necessarily good or bad, it just is.
Besides, I think this particular useage was tongue in cheek.
You misunderstand what is meant when we say that the Universe is flat. It has no relation to the topology of the universe; right now theorists think that the actual topology could be very complicated indeed, not just that the universe is like a wraparound pac-man screen or a taurus, but that space embodies a much more complicated hypergeometrical shape. When scientists say the universe is flat, that's a reference to its eventual cosmological fate. An open universe has a low overall energy density and will keep accelerating outward, expanding forever, as it does not have sufficient mass for gravity to counter act expansion. A closed universe has an energy density such that the universe will eventually collapse back on itself in the Big Crunch. A FLAT Universe simply means that as time approaches infinity the expansion of the universe approaches zero. Until recently, evidence has supported an open universe (there just isn't enough mass to support any other option), while theorists have argued that the universe must be flat. Recently scientists have determined, that if, in the cosmological equations, Einstein's cosmological constant is greater than zero, the idea of a flat universe can be reconcilled. I could get into a whole thing about the cosmological constant, but since no one will probably read this anyway, I'll leave that for a later discussion.
Wombat 3 semesters awar from a BS in Astrophysics (as well as a BA in Theatre.)
Was copyright enforcement ever really simple?
on
At The Crossroads
·
· Score: 2
I'd just like to comment on a couple pieces of this article, specifically the lines that read, "Copying is no longer difficult. As each generation has developed better technologies, the ability of copyright holders to protect their intellectual property has eroded to the point where copyright either has to be re-defined or abandoned.... Before the Internet, copyright law and the means to enforce it were relatively simple." These statements about the increased difficulty of copyright enforcement are only true to a degree. If we look back at the history of copyrights, it's only been for a brief window in the twentieth century that they became their most enforceable. After all, first technology had to increase to a point where copyrights were more easily defendable, before it could progress to where we are now. I'll use some theatrical performances as a couple of examples. In the 1700's the play "She Stoops to Conquer" premiered in New York a scant few months after int opened in London. How was this accomplished? The New York impresario had friends in London who went to the performance each night, and when they got home copied down the play from memory. They then sent the pages over to New York one act at a time. The resulting event was a great theatrical phenomenon but certainly a violation of copyright. At the time there was not much that could be done. It certainly wasn't using very advanced technology; just the regular ship from London to NY. Now we move to more recent times, the late 19th century. Gilbert and Sullivan's "HMS Pinafore" was still running in London, while pirate productions cropped up all over the US with many of the original words and music, but in a bastardized form. G and S couldn't stop them, so they brought their own production to the US to show the public how the play was suppossed to be done. Granted these are examples of a specific art form with its own peculiarities, but copyright of all kinds was hard to enforce before the twentieth century. Maybe the "earlier in the 20th C" is implicit in the phrase "before the internet," but I felt a need to qualify these statements in this article a little.
Wombat. darn it. gotta get to class five minutes ago.
I don't see this post as the work of a Troll. It was well thought out, incredibly funny and entertaining, where as Troll posts, well, aren't. It seems to me that even if a post is off topic, if it has other redeeming qualities (such as being hilarious) it's worthwhile. After all, that's why there's the Funny moderation. And, oddly enough, since you've responded to a post that was off topic, isn't your post off topic as well? And mine is doubly so... just something to think about.
I just went to the site linked to in the initial article, ie, http://wiretap.area.com/
and everything seems to be up and running (perhaps some of the content is missing, I didn't have time to look around too much). I know this could be considered redundant; there was a reply to another message that mentioned something similar and several people have mentioned that it's still working through gopher, but I figured it might be useful to point out that the web server seems to be fine in the main thread. Moderate as you will.
I know there's a lot of comments already, and I don't want to be redundant... I do, however, want to throw in my thoughts. Yes, the episode had difficulties, most of which everyone else has covered. But I'd like to answer some of them; to the question of why didn't they use actual game graphics? Well, think about it. It's probably a lot cheaper and faster to hire an actor and say "move like this, say these lines" than to actually go through and render the exact sequences the script and director call for. Someone else brought up the seeming lack of an AI in the game. I have to agree that this was the case for Level II. The game's level 1, however, reminded me a lot of the opening level from Duke Nukem 3D, and I thought that was good. It also seemed like it had a lot more potential for AI involvement than the second level, which was, essentially, a duck hunt or Carnival style shooter and that's it. Someone else asked how they planned to ship the game. At one point one of the lone gunmen said it was being sent to "50 malls next week." that gave me the impression that it was going to be set up like the lazer tag places and virtual reality arcades that are in existence now; it wouldn't be sent to homes but would be an amusement desitination. Ignoring all the implausibilities, I thought the episode was just fun, darn it. We all know mulder's a geek, and to see him go in to the game in his groovy techno armor was cool. It reminded me of how I felt playing Doom II over a network for the first time around '94. And I think that's what the episode meant to do, besides bringing up the issues of game violence, sexism, etc, I think it just wanted to create the same feelings that arise among players of First person shooters, perhaps providing a bit of a glimpse into a culture that non players might not know exists. And while I'm asking for it, I thought that the COPS style episode last week was really cool too. And before I get skewered let me remind you of Pohl's law... Nothing is so good that somebody, somewhere, will not hate it.
-Wombat Because. Syntax Error in line 10. Core dumped. Please bugger off.
Re:the first half of the post. I agree completely. Intelligence, as we typically think of it, is an abstract concept in and of itself. I know some very intelligent people who have difficulty coping with some everyday problems... This is why Dungeons and Dragons character sheets have separate attributes for Intelligence and Wisdom.;-)
Anyone know where to get a copy of this 1975 BBC film? I love the book and I would love to see Tim Curry and Michael Palin in the film (with screenplay by Tom Stoppard, no less)!
Slashdot Mirror
It is a bootleg, but not of the preview that's at the end of FotR... the preview appended to the first installment is much longer.
This is the trailer that's going to be attached to the new Austin Powers movie (as theonering.net speculates), but it looks like it's been leaked a bit early. I imagine it'll go up on apple's site in higher quality once it's officially released.
-Wombat
Unfortunately I think you're missing/misunderstanding my point in a lot of ways.
;-) .
You said, "You seem to stress on the fact that the guy should have been denied the award just because he stole a few small things and lied?"
Yes indeed. I am stressing that. He stole lots of smoke detectors from a summer camp. He lied a lot. The Eagle Scout Award is not one given for scientific achievment. It's given for completing specific requirements, public service, and maintaining a certain level of character. It's not a, "well, you did an impressive feat, have an award," thing. It's not supposed to be like a honorary Oscar.
Second, if all he did was risk his own health, I would be far less critical. But with the experiments he was doing, he was putting the health of the community in danger (sort of anti-public service). A good scientist needs to have a sense of ethics. Yes, I agree that risk is inherent in new discovery, etc. but there is such a thing as acceptable risk. There's a reason the Space shuttle launches from a thin peninsula. Dave, at least from what I know and have read after the fact, did not even consider what effects his experiments might have on others. This was a serious lapse in judgement. This is why what I say was "really dumb," not to say that what he did didn't take hard work and dedication. But, IMHO, it was seriously misguided.
You also say, You cannot hope to build a rocket without risking it crashing somewhere. If that's the case, then most of the world's greatest scientists are idiots by your scale.
Since when did Stephen Hawking risk anyone's life? Brian Greene? Your statement here is silly, I'm afraid. See above section about acceptable risk. And I find your use of three exclamation points in the section I have not quoted inflamatory
Finally, you say that "When all is said and done, he's one smart dude." I guess this really depends on your definition of 'smart.' He did try to do something impressive, if dangerous, with at least a fair amount of chemistry knowledge at his disposal. I could give him the benefit of the doubt, and say that in conversations I had with him he feigned less knowledge than he had to make me feel like I could help him out, but I don't think that was the case. Maybe he advanced quickly shortly thereafter, and read a lot of books. In any case, there is a difference between knowledge and wisdom. And smart people can still do really stupid things.
-Wombat
Oh yeah. I forgot to mention, but as my brother pointed out in another comment, we used to call Dave "Glow Boy."
Just thought people might find that amusing, if they hadn't seen it before...
-Wombat.
This story has personal relevance for me. My brother and I were in the same Boy Scout troup as David Hahn, and went to high school with him. He's two years older than me, I believe, and one year younger than my brother. He briefly served as Senior Patrol Leader; I believe my Totin' Chit (knife certification card) was signed by him.
One of the things I've noticed about all the articles I've read about him, is that they seem to give him credit for too much competence. On more than one occasion he showed up at a scout meeting with his eyebrows missing and his face red and burned from something gone awry. He used to pull me aside and tell me that he had Americanium in his pocket, at which point I would tell him he was probably making himself sterile, which he would shrug off. This is not good science by any means.
He would ask my brother chemistry questions, and (after my brother stopped coming to meetings) he would ask me for advice about chemicals, reactions, nuclear power, etc (I, who was two years his junior and yet to take high school chemistry). We knew about some of his experiments, but in a lot of ways assumed he was exaggerating. And we didn't know the extent to which he had lied and swindled to obtain his supplies. We didn't know until we saw the report about the EPA on the news, cleaning up a backyard shed and thought, "Good God, that must be Dave..."
I've given several interviews with an author who was apparently working on a full length book on Dave at various times as an undergrad, but I don't know if the book ever saw the light of day. Between the EPA incident and his joining the navy, my dad and I ran into him at the local Kroger where he was a stock boy (or something). His skin color was bright orange. He was experimenting with artificial tanning, and babbled on in pseudo-science talk about trying to permanently modify his skin color. ?! And last I heard he was a helmsman on the carrier Enterprise (though that was a few years ago, now).
Several things frustrate me about this whole story:
1) That he still made Eagle Scout. The Board of Review for advancement in Rank is composed of senior leaders of the troop; they are supposed to judge a candidate and, if they aren't satisfied, can refuse him the rank if they find him not meeting character requirements, etc. (what with the lying, cheating, etc, one would think Dave did not). But politics on local and notional board levels has contributed to what I consider dilution of the award in more cases than this (note, I'm not an eagle scout myself, i'm just arguing on principle).
2) What he did was really, really stupid and dangerous. This is not an inspiring tale of a brilliant young man, but a cautionary tale of how a little knowledge and not much common sense can cause lots of trouble.
3)This gets publicity for years, but legitimate science by young people is often overlooked.
Sigh. I'll end my rant now. But I get frustrated everytime I see this story come up yet again.
-Wombat.
too dismayed for a sig.
(Dave, if you're somehow reading this, I'm sorry, but what you did was dumb)
Interesting that you call Psychology an Arts major...seems to me it's clearly a social science.
;-) )
Anyway, let's switch our analogy for a minute and look at a fine arts class: someone who wants to sculpt but doesn't have the basic skills (or a natural affinity) is going to have a hell of a hard time in a sculpting class. Someone without a natural affinity (or the basic skills, or who doesn't want to put in the time) for Calc 2 is gonna have a hard time in that class.
I found all of my theatre classes easier in a lot of ways than my physics classes (especially stat mech, damn the man), and frequently more fun, but that doesn't mean I didn't work hard in them. If something's easy for you and you still work hard at it, then you do a superior job instead of an adequate job.
Let's not devalue arts majors as easier or of less intrinsic value out of hand just cause we feel we've been beating ourselves up with our techie stuff.
-Wombat
(and this is still on topic; important thoughts to take with you to college...
We give them a fancy name and call them Kinesiology majors... ;-)
But ours still have to take anatomy classes and whatnot, so maybe it's different.
Nonetheless... Even though professional sports people don't do much "work" they do exert a lot of effort into what they do. Just cause it's a game doesn't mean it's all fun and ga... crap. I'll shut up now. You may have a point.
I guess I'll say that while there are certainly some majors which encourage the "slack," in many ways, you get out of college what you put into it, no matter what your major.
and now I'll leave this thread alone.
-Wombat
I think you're spot on; definitely a Tower of Babel reference. And from the black cat I presume that they're hinting at hoping to receive early warnings about future disasters? A mixed metaphor and a little peculiar to be sure, but it seems to make sense.
-Wombat
I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to differ with your statement that "Theatre Majors are the epitome of laziness." I think, as in any major, you get those who are dedicated and those who are slackers. Granted, perhaps a few more slackers end up in the theatre area because it's more subjective and there are fewer rigorous homework deadlines than in, say, Astrophysics.
From personal experience I and many of my friends have worked our asses off in our university's Theatre department. And that's what one has to be willing to do if one has a strong desire to be an artist professionally. The ones who slacked off will inevitably be waiting tables, while the hard workers at least have a fighting chance.
Other than that, you give pretty good advice. ;-)
-Wombat,Michigan State class of 2002, BA Theatre, BS Astrophysics.
Examples of hardwork:
Lighting Design Portfolio
Acting Resume
and Your Mom(Improv Comedy)
1. Real Name, 2 permutations.
First I did a search on both Google and Teoma for the shortened version of my first name. On the first page of results for Google, my homepage shows up as the first hit and a piece of mail I submitted to Brunching Shuttlecocks as the second. A smattering of the remaining hits relate to me. On Teoma, the first hit was the Brunching Shuttlecocks mail, the second a page that links to me, and the third an old web based chemistry project. My homepage doesn't show up anywhere in the first couple pages of hits. With my full name on Google, the first hit is me, the second a graphic/web designer with the same name. Tehoma hits me a couple times tangentially on the first page, but nothing substantial.
2. Silly Web Title
I've used the phrase 'Wombat underground' as the silly title of my homepage since high school, so I was curious where it would show up. With Google the first three hits were right on the money. All me. With Tehoma the first, second and fourth hits are good, but it still didn't hit on my personal homepage.
3. E-mail search.
Searched for the string 'hungerf9.' Teoma found 5, google 110, all of which pointed to me.
It seems that, indeed, Google is still the reigning champion of the vanity search.
Wombat
Your post actually is actually more culturally relevant than you might think. Gustave Courbet painted in 1866 a work entitled 'L'Origine du monde' (The origin of the world), which was a detailed painting of the nether parts of a human female. It was a private comission (some rich business guy wanted it), but raises the stakes on the old pornography or art question at a far earlier date than many might realize, besides the interesting commentary of the work's title. For the curious and over 18, you can view the painting at the Artchive here.
Oh the things you learn in art history class.
-Wombat
Actually, your idea that newly evolved intelligent life will be there in a few billion years is probably a bit off.
As mentioned in the Odyssey mission objectives, "Mars today is far too cold with an atmosphere that is far too thin to support liquid water on the surface." Not an outright elimination of the possibility of intelligent life, but at least of intelligent life as we know it. The atmosphere is just way too thin, and things may only get worse on the surface from further bleed off without some form of intervention. I think the common view is that if there was higher (i.e., many cellular) life on mars, it was probably when back when the planet was warmer and wetter. Anything that might be left is likely barely eking out an existence in special environments.
And, in the few billion years you propose for intelligent life to evolve, the sun will have expanded to a red giant, and the surface of Mars will likely be nice and toasty. A bit too toasty perhaps for, again, life as we know it.
Finally, there's plenty of scientific value in studying Mars whether there's life there or not. The life issue is perhaps the most media friendly, and the one that most captures the pop cultural interest, but there's lots of other stuff to learn from that red rock.
-Wombat
This is offtopic, but I've got a couple of points:
1. You're making a big ol' blanket statement about Wayne State students, aren't you? Beware generalizations. After all, college is what you make it.
2. I'm not entirely sure what operator type thingy you're trying to get across with "e ta da tee." Presumably [something]/dt ?
3. It's a bit arrogant to assume you're more intelligent than someone just because they speak with a regional dialect, as you imply.
That's it for now. I'm out.
Wombat.
"Y end paranthesis X? NOW THAT'S FUNNY!" - Einstein in 'Picasso at the Lapin Agile'
A little odd that you should say this, since the actor doing the voice over in this new trailer is Sir Ian McKellan, who is most definitely English. Funny, that.
Wombat.
There are several problems inherent to having the system blow up a warhead when it's on its way back into the atmosphere. One prominent example, in the case of a biological weapon the toxic payload would then be spread over a much larger area, causing more overall death/destruction.
Wombat.
I've always looked up to Alec Guiness, first as a kid obsessed with Star Wars and later as one appreciative of his great acting ability. For anyone who would like to become more acquainted with the man he was, not only did he write a volume of official memoirs, but also two volumes of daily diaries filled with charming anecdotes about his life, his past, film, and the theatre. They are My Name Escapes me, and, published just last year, A Positively Final Appearance. I've read the first, but haven't yet gotten to the second.
In a sidenote, with Sir Alec we've lost the last of a generation of great thespians; first Olivier in '89, and Gielgud and Guiness this year. Where, I wonder, are the great actors to replace them?
-Wombat
http://yourpants.net
Content. What content?
Oddly enough, an orion engine is what was used in the movie Deep Impact to get the ship to the comet... though they didn't explain the technology behind it. Try The Bad Astronomer's site for more details....
Wombat
So,in a pro Napster spin, this means that Less than Half of Napster users have purchased fewer CDs since using Napster. And the question was probably worded in such a way that there were many responses which could "suggest" that Napster displaces CD sales without really meaning it.
Surveys mean whatever you want them to mean.
Wombat
I think instead of Cosmic Constant, you mean Einstein's Cosmological Constant. And if current speculations about the value of the Constant are correct, it would be essentially a repulsive gravitational force, or at least the closest analogue to it that we know of. *shrug* "Antigravity" has also been used in association with questionable research into gravity shielding.
The fact remains that the definition of a word is dictated by its use, so while you're entitled to your opinion, everyone's gonna use it as they damn well please anyway. It's not necessarily good or bad, it just is.
Besides, I think this particular useage was tongue in cheek.
Wombat
You misunderstand what is meant when we say that the Universe is flat. It has no relation to the topology of the universe; right now theorists think that the actual topology could be very complicated indeed, not just that the universe is like a wraparound pac-man screen or a taurus, but that space embodies a much more complicated hypergeometrical shape.
When scientists say the universe is flat, that's a reference to its eventual cosmological fate. An open universe has a low overall energy density and will keep accelerating outward, expanding forever, as it does not have sufficient mass for gravity to counter act expansion. A closed universe has an energy density such that the universe will eventually collapse back on itself in the Big Crunch.
A FLAT Universe simply means that as time approaches infinity the expansion of the universe approaches zero.
Until recently, evidence has supported an open universe (there just isn't enough mass to support any other option), while theorists have argued that the universe must be flat. Recently scientists have determined, that if, in the cosmological equations, Einstein's cosmological constant is greater than zero, the idea of a flat universe can be reconcilled. I could get into a whole thing about the cosmological constant, but since no one will probably read this anyway, I'll leave that for a later discussion.
Wombat
3 semesters awar from a BS in Astrophysics
(as well as a BA in Theatre.)
I'd just like to comment on a couple pieces of this article, specifically the lines that read, "Copying is no longer difficult. As each generation has developed better technologies, the ability of copyright holders to protect their intellectual property has eroded to the point where copyright either has to be re-defined or abandoned. ... Before the Internet, copyright law and the means to enforce it were relatively simple."
These statements about the increased difficulty of copyright enforcement are only true to a degree. If we look back at the history of copyrights, it's only been for a brief window in the twentieth century that they became their most enforceable. After all, first technology had to increase to a point where copyrights were more easily defendable, before it could progress to where we are now.
I'll use some theatrical performances as a couple of examples. In the 1700's the play "She Stoops to Conquer" premiered in New York a scant few months after int opened in London. How was this accomplished? The New York impresario had friends in London who went to the performance each night, and when they got home copied down the play from memory. They then sent the pages over to New York one act at a time. The resulting event was a great theatrical phenomenon but certainly a violation of copyright. At the time there was not much that could be done. It certainly wasn't using very advanced technology; just the regular ship from London to NY.
Now we move to more recent times, the late 19th century. Gilbert and Sullivan's "HMS Pinafore" was still running in London, while pirate productions cropped up all over the US with many of the original words and music, but in a bastardized form. G and S couldn't stop them, so they brought their own production to the US to show the public how the play was suppossed to be done.
Granted these are examples of a specific art form with its own peculiarities, but copyright of all kinds was hard to enforce before the twentieth century. Maybe the "earlier in the 20th C" is implicit in the phrase "before the internet," but I felt a need to qualify these statements in this article a little.
Wombat.
darn it. gotta get to class five minutes ago.
I don't see this post as the work of a Troll. It was well thought out, incredibly funny and entertaining, where as Troll posts, well, aren't. It seems to me that even if a post is off topic, if it has other redeeming qualities (such as being hilarious) it's worthwhile. After all, that's why there's the Funny moderation. And, oddly enough, since you've responded to a post that was off topic, isn't your post off topic as well? And mine is doubly so... just something to think about.
Wombat.
I just went to the site linked to in the initial article, ie, http://wiretap.area.com/
and everything seems to be up and running (perhaps some of the content is missing, I didn't have time to look around too much). I know this could be considered redundant; there was a reply to another message that mentioned something similar and several people have mentioned that it's still working through gopher, but I figured it might be useful to point out that the web server seems to be fine in the main thread. Moderate as you will.
- Wombat
or, old school BBS style, WôMBÄT
I know there's a lot of comments already, and I don't want to be redundant... I do, however, want to throw in my thoughts.
Yes, the episode had difficulties, most of which everyone else has covered. But I'd like to answer some of them; to the question of why didn't they use actual game graphics? Well, think about it. It's probably a lot cheaper and faster to hire an actor and say "move like this, say these lines" than to actually go through and render the exact sequences the script and director call for.
Someone else brought up the seeming lack of an AI in the game. I have to agree that this was the case for Level II. The game's level 1, however, reminded me a lot of the opening level from Duke Nukem 3D, and I thought that was good. It also seemed like it had a lot more potential for AI involvement than the second level, which was, essentially, a duck hunt or Carnival style shooter and that's it.
Someone else asked how they planned to ship the game. At one point one of the lone gunmen said it was being sent to "50 malls next week." that gave me the impression that it was going to be set up like the lazer tag places and virtual reality arcades that are in existence now; it wouldn't be sent to homes but would be an amusement desitination.
Ignoring all the implausibilities, I thought the episode was just fun, darn it. We all know mulder's a geek, and to see him go in to the game in his groovy techno armor was cool. It reminded me of how I felt playing Doom II over a network for the first time around '94. And I think that's what the episode meant to do, besides bringing up the issues of game violence, sexism, etc, I think it just wanted to create the same feelings that arise among players of First person shooters, perhaps providing a bit of a glimpse into a culture that non players might not know exists.
And while I'm asking for it, I thought that the COPS style episode last week was really cool too. And before I get skewered let me remind you of Pohl's law... Nothing is so good that somebody, somewhere, will not hate it.
-Wombat
Because. Syntax Error in line 10. Core dumped. Please bugger off.
Re:the first half of the post. ;-)
I agree completely. Intelligence, as we typically think of it, is an abstract concept in and of itself. I know some very intelligent people who have difficulty coping with some everyday problems...
This is why Dungeons and Dragons character sheets have separate attributes for Intelligence and Wisdom.
Anyone know where to get a copy of this 1975 BBC film? I love the book and I would love to see Tim Curry and Michael Palin in the film (with screenplay by Tom Stoppard, no less)!
Wombat