I recall seeing (no link, sorry) video of a smallish bird (small duck, I think), frozen, fired into the turbines of a 747 in a lab. No problem at all, the blades cut the bird into 1/2 inch thick slabs o' frozen mallard...
the thawed versions tend to explode given the same treatment
The problem is that you occasionally get defective tires.
The fact is, programmers make mistakes, and programs interact in unpredictable ways sometimes. It is hardly fair to force someone to subject their system to (to them) random failures as the OS changes.
Is it risky not to patch? yup. It's also risky to patch, given a history of patches that fubar the system. If they user is able to decide which risk to take, seems fair to me.
So far as licenses and such go, I wonder if changes that occur during automatic patching are legally valid. I doubt it.
Now folks, can we perhaps discuss without the psycho-rantings (not a comment on the parent of this post)... A screaming genius is indistinguishable from a lunatic...
Oh, I'm a fan of the whole OSS movement, based on the quality and ingenuity. However, I've seen too much to go in for 'religious wars'. I also don't worship anyone (ok, maybe Larry) in geekdom.
We know that there are none within a couple of hundred light years? Really?
I must have missed the memo. I was under the impression that we were just now (last 10 years or so) able to detect planets, and indirectly at that. I think it's a tad early to start declaring omniscience (sp?) and declare the search unworthy.
hell, LIFE looks terrible when compared to the ideal...
That said, it is our duty as citizens of a 'free' country to keep an eye on the government. I love the relative freedom I have, but that doesn't mean I'll fall in line with the 'party line', y'know?
Again, if the govt made the honesty assertion that 'we're attacking threats' instead of 'we're spreading democracy', etc. I'd have a lot more respect.
When heard Rumsfeld (I think) asserting that 'we're not trying to enforce our way of life... we just want to establish democracy and leave', I almost choked.
Is Hussein a sick bastard? Absolutely. Is it useful to have destabilized the mid-east? possibly. Did we do it out of the goodness our our collective heart? Bullshit. Then we woulda killed the fucker 10 years ago.
Regarding point 1... this is NOT a 'legal' (whatever that means internationally) reason to invade. We (America) have, are, and will build offensive weapons to use on whoever we deem a significant threat.
Would you feel as justified if someone attacked us on those grounds?
I have zero problem with military action in the national interest (i.e. get them before they get us), but let's not get a nosebleed from that highhorse when the US is by far the most militarily dangerous country in the world.
(as a side note, here we don't kill dissenters... we just start slowly removing their right to dissent...)
Kinda unfortunate that they are thought of that way. While the odds of contact soon are low, there's nothing wrong with the science or basic assumption that there is other life out there.
well, if it's a stupid signal, why bother... 'take me to your, er... duuhhhh'
Seriously though, it's not as though SETI is competing with space exploration in any serious way. Since it's been privatized (and even before, actually), the yearly budget for SETI is _much_ lower than the cost of launching the cheapest satellite. Interplanetary travel is orders of magnitude more expensive.
I've heard a lot of folks (even Lucas, which was funny) basically discounting the 'CGI will replace actors' worries. With an actor, you just say 'ok, change of plan... walk to the left on this take', and the guy does it. With CGI, you've gotta re animate the whole damn thing. I know some interpolation helps, but it's still Sloooooow.
Also, if your model wasn't built to do it, you need a whole new model (for example... a wall can be simulated by a simple rectangularish shape, with texture. But if that wall has to crumble or something, then it needs to be made of individual bricks, increasing complexity and render time. And if the bricks need to shatter, you need sub-particles...)
Not that it makes a huge amount of difference, but I think the impact were around 300mph, whereas the max speed for the planes is around 500-600 mph.
Notably, the building didn't even (visibly) sway with the impact. Leaving the whole fire/truss thing alone, that's a hell of a strong structure to take a million pound impact at.5 mach...
It is actually pretty well documented (I don't have any links, sorry). I think it's a couple of dozen species a day, so far as we can tell. If you figure that there are tens of millions of species (insects tend to inflate the number), and most species last less than 2 million years, it makes sense that we lose a bunch a day.
This isn't to say that humans accelerating the process for some species, however.
Or the ability to publicly bitch about the system...
I read a quote saying something like "Democracy is the one form of government where you are allowed to talk about how great it would be to have a first class government..."
The truth is, no 'pure' economy seems to be perfect.
Remember that most 'obvious, easy and quick' solutions are wrong...
I can't criticize capitalism too much. It pays the rent, you know?
Re:Contamination is not a problem - it's desirable
on
Might Mars Contain Life?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Incidently, overcrowding is not an issue of space, it's an issue of logistics and economics. There are still HUGE areas on the planet (read: 80% of North America) that are both inhabitable and essentially empty. But it's not easy or cheap to put people there, so until it make economic sense (i.e., there is a demand) why bother?
Gets kinda sad, when you think about the fact that the US could supply enough food to stop all starvation in the world (California could feed all of the US), but there's no money in it...
Corporations don't exist to help their customers, they exist to employ people and make stockholders money.
In the rare occasions that corporations DO go out of their way to help the customer, it usually costs them money. In my experience, few businesses will do anything 'benevolently' if it doesn't lead to revenue. Not a lot of reason to.
It's possible, but (as someone else has already stated), most likely you wouldn't get the extreme-environment bugs, but rather normal florida bacteria...
If you're concerned that we might confuse 'our bugs' with martian ones, a simple DNA comparison is all it would take to establish where they came from.
What really interests me is if we find life that _is_ linked to ours, but from billions of years back... there is a theory that the cliched 'building blocks of life' may have been deposited from space; we know asteroids have amino acids... if the chemistry was more advanced, and both planets were populated with bugs from space... well, time to rewrite the biology books.
Plus, all those 'exobiologists' won't get laughed at anymore.
I've always figured that the incredible detail of the world was what made LOTR so great. I liked the references to things that are not explained fully, gives you a historical feel (for explanation, read the Silmarillion, if you can... 10 pages and I have to stop).
It's the details that make it so popular. Otherwise it is a _very_ old story:
1) good and evil battle over a powerful artifact 2) reluctant prince/son claims birthright and fights. 3) after a long battle and much damage to the world, Good wins.
The simple story isn't a bad thing (almost all stories come from ancient themes)... it kinda reveals something about human character.
Alternately, there's the 'fortune' version of LOTR (condensed): "A Bunch of guys take a long vacation and throw a ring into a volcano"
What would be really interesting is to figure out _why_ your tracking ability improves... Working out is simple... you damage muscle, the body overbuilds when compensating... bingo, you're stronger. It's a well understood chemical phenomenon, with no known analog in the brain (at least, not known to me).
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I recall seeing (no link, sorry) video of a smallish bird (small duck, I think), frozen, fired into the turbines of a 747 in a lab. No problem at all, the blades cut the bird into 1/2 inch thick slabs o' frozen mallard...
the thawed versions tend to explode given the same treatment
The problem is that you occasionally get defective tires.
The fact is, programmers make mistakes, and programs interact in unpredictable ways sometimes. It is hardly fair to force someone to subject their system to (to them) random failures as the OS changes.
Is it risky not to patch? yup. It's also risky to patch, given a history of patches that fubar the system. If they user is able to decide which risk to take, seems fair to me.
So far as licenses and such go, I wonder if changes that occur during automatic patching are legally valid. I doubt it.
Now folks, can we perhaps discuss without the psycho-rantings (not a comment on the parent of this post)... A screaming genius is indistinguishable from a lunatic...
Oh, I'm a fan of the whole OSS movement, based on the quality and ingenuity. However, I've seen too much to go in for 'religious wars'. I also don't worship anyone (ok, maybe Larry) in geekdom.
Freedom fighters eh? Methinks that some folks 'round here take this stuff a tad seriously...
We know that there are none within a couple of hundred light years? Really?
I must have missed the memo. I was under the impression that we were just now (last 10 years or so) able to detect planets, and indirectly at that. I think it's a tad early to start declaring omniscience (sp?) and declare the search unworthy.
Hell, I have that much and I own all the CDs... 'course I rip at 320 kb as well...
hell, LIFE looks terrible when compared to the ideal...
That said, it is our duty as citizens of a 'free' country to keep an eye on the government. I love the relative freedom I have, but that doesn't mean I'll fall in line with the 'party line', y'know?
Again, if the govt made the honesty assertion that 'we're attacking threats' instead of 'we're spreading democracy', etc. I'd have a lot more respect.
When heard Rumsfeld (I think) asserting that 'we're not trying to enforce our way of life... we just want to establish democracy and leave', I almost choked.
Is Hussein a sick bastard? Absolutely. Is it useful to have destabilized the mid-east? possibly. Did we do it out of the goodness our our collective heart? Bullshit. Then we woulda killed the fucker 10 years ago.
Regarding point 1... this is NOT a 'legal' (whatever that means internationally) reason to invade. We (America) have, are, and will build offensive weapons to use on whoever we deem a significant threat.
Would you feel as justified if someone attacked us on those grounds?
I have zero problem with military action in the national interest (i.e. get them before they get us), but let's not get a nosebleed from that highhorse when the US is by far the most militarily dangerous country in the world.
(as a side note, here we don't kill dissenters... we just start slowly removing their right to dissent...)
I stand corrected! Thanks for the info.
Kinda unfortunate that they are thought of that way. While the odds of contact soon are low, there's nothing wrong with the science or basic assumption that there is other life out there.
well, if it's a stupid signal, why bother... 'take me to your, er... duuhhhh'
Seriously though, it's not as though SETI is competing with space exploration in any serious way. Since it's been privatized (and even before, actually), the yearly budget for SETI is _much_ lower than the cost of launching the cheapest satellite. Interplanetary travel is orders of magnitude more expensive.
I've heard a lot of folks (even Lucas, which was funny) basically discounting the 'CGI will replace actors' worries. With an actor, you just say 'ok, change of plan... walk to the left on this take', and the guy does it. With CGI, you've gotta re animate the whole damn thing. I know some interpolation helps, but it's still Sloooooow.
Also, if your model wasn't built to do it, you need a whole new model (for example... a wall can be simulated by a simple rectangularish shape, with texture. But if that wall has to crumble or something, then it needs to be made of individual bricks, increasing complexity and render time. And if the bricks need to shatter, you need sub-particles...)
Teach him to fish and he'll sit in a boat and drink beer all day...
Not that it makes a huge amount of difference, but I think the impact were around 300mph, whereas the max speed for the planes is around 500-600 mph.
.5 mach...
Notably, the building didn't even (visibly) sway with the impact. Leaving the whole fire/truss thing alone, that's a hell of a strong structure to take a million pound impact at
It is actually pretty well documented (I don't have any links, sorry). I think it's a couple of dozen species a day, so far as we can tell. If you figure that there are tens of millions of species (insects tend to inflate the number), and most species last less than 2 million years, it makes sense that we lose a bunch a day.
This isn't to say that humans accelerating the process for some species, however.
This things looks like the interface to one of those 'interactive' adult DVD players...
It's a risky life :)
Or the ability to publicly bitch about the system...
I read a quote saying something like "Democracy is the one form of government where you are allowed to talk about how great it would be to have a first class government..."
The truth is, no 'pure' economy seems to be perfect.
Remember that most 'obvious, easy and quick' solutions are wrong...
I can't criticize capitalism too much. It pays the rent, you know?
Incidently, overcrowding is not an issue of space, it's an issue of logistics and economics. There are still HUGE areas on the planet (read: 80% of North America) that are both inhabitable and essentially empty. But it's not easy or cheap to put people there, so until it make economic sense (i.e., there is a demand) why bother?
Gets kinda sad, when you think about the fact that the US could supply enough food to stop all starvation in the world (California could feed all of the US), but there's no money in it...
Corporations don't exist to help their customers, they exist to employ people and make stockholders money.
In the rare occasions that corporations DO go out of their way to help the customer, it usually costs them money. In my experience, few businesses will do anything 'benevolently' if it doesn't lead to revenue. Not a lot of reason to.
It's possible, but (as someone else has already stated), most likely you wouldn't get the extreme-environment bugs, but rather normal florida bacteria...
If you're concerned that we might confuse 'our bugs' with martian ones, a simple DNA comparison is all it would take to establish where they came from.
What really interests me is if we find life that _is_ linked to ours, but from billions of years back... there is a theory that the cliched 'building blocks of life' may have been deposited from space; we know asteroids have amino acids... if the chemistry was more advanced, and both planets were populated with bugs from space... well, time to rewrite the biology books.
Plus, all those 'exobiologists' won't get laughed at anymore.
I've always figured that the incredible detail of the world was what made LOTR so great. I liked the references to things that are not explained fully, gives you a historical feel (for explanation, read the Silmarillion, if you can... 10 pages and I have to stop).
It's the details that make it so popular. Otherwise it is a _very_ old story:
1) good and evil battle over a powerful artifact
2) reluctant prince/son claims birthright and fights.
3) after a long battle and much damage to the world, Good wins.
The simple story isn't a bad thing (almost all stories come from ancient themes)... it kinda reveals something about human character.
Alternately, there's the 'fortune' version of LOTR (condensed):
"A Bunch of guys take a long vacation and throw a ring into a volcano"
heh heh, gotta love parody... the best us of fair use
What would be really interesting is to figure out _why_ your tracking ability improves... Working out is simple... you damage muscle, the body overbuilds when compensating... bingo, you're stronger. It's a well understood chemical phenomenon, with no known analog in the brain (at least, not known to me).