Calling the idea that life on Earth may have originated on Mars panspermia is going a bit far. It's hard to come up with a plausible method for true panspermia, but exogenesis, which is what we are talking about here, does seem reasonable. The same methods whereby life may have developed on Earth look just as likely on Mars.
Since Mars is so much smaller than Earth, it probably cooled and formed a crust first. If life developed on Mars, it may well have done so while it was still impossible here. It appears to be possible for life to make the trip from Mars to Earth in impact ejecta and still be viable on arrival, although perhaps further study will show otherwise.
This is all just supposition, but it is a basis to think about what to look for to establish which of these is correct: There is no native life on Mars (proving a negative can be very hard, though); there is life on Mars and it developed independently (the most interesting possibility); or life developed on one and got transferred to the other. Until we find life on Mars, or do a thorough search and find none, we probably will have no good reason to believe or disbelieve any of these.
The people who thought they found evidence for life from Mars in that meteorite were probably wrong, but I'm glad they were looking.
The GPLv2 license with the later versions clause is of course compatible with GPLv3, but other than that I don't think so. GPLv3 adds more restrictions, which is prohibited by v2; and if GPLv3 is made compatible with the v2 only license it would be pointless.
First, if you are working and earning money, fully fund an IRA account (Roth is probably best for you). An SP500 or total stock market no-load index fund would be a suitable choice.
Second, if you have the luxury of a small cash reserve, put it in a money market fund. Shop for a good rate, but if it's not insured only use one provided by a solid company, like Fidelity, Vanguard, etc. If you want to take a small amount of risk you could try a short term bond fund (Vanguard is a good choice because of their low expenses), but that's probably the most risk you should take in your situation.
When the loans start to accrue interest and you start to earn money, cash out most of your investments (not the IRA) to pay down the loans. Just try to keep enough money in liquid accounts to cover your expenses for a few months.
When you eventually pay off the loans and start investing, avoid commodities, loaded (sales charge over 1%) mutual funds, limited partnerships and almost anything an investment counselor tries to get you to buy through them. Do not put a lot of your investments into the company you work for, that's too risky. Do diversify. If you don't want to be too actively involved in your investments index funds are good, or individual stocks or specialty funds if you want to actively manage them. Income producing real estate can be good if you understand it and are willing to put in the effort it requires.
I suspect that some of those parents refused transfusions because they believed what the Bible said (in their eyes) was more likely to be right than the doctor. Not right morally but scientifically: The AIDS cases caused by transfusions were a powerful reinforcement of biblical infallibility in medical matters for those who already believed transfusions were prohibited. The fact that the number of these transmissions was statistically small at the time (except for hemophiliacs) and now almost zero does not matter; they think the risk of that and other similar unknown dangers are too high to risk.
It's not hard to find examples where doctors have been wrong about the safety of treatments in the past, so we know they are not infallible. The Bible on the other hand...
Silly as it seems, I have known people who held these views and tried to convince me of them. When you realize that many of the same people believe the Earth is under 10,000 years old and that there is no such thing as "macro evolution", you can understand how hopeless it can be to try to convince them their medical ideas are wrong.
As the guy in charge of computers for a small company, I've seen a lot of damage caused by people installing programs they saw advertised for free. I've often explained to people that while free programs may or may not be ok, a free program that can afford to advertise should always be avoided. The cost of that type of free program is more than someone in business can afford.
I use Open Office and I recommend it to others. On the other hand, I've trained a lot of people to avoid it once they've seen the ad.
What does getting credit or a bank account have to do with your social security account anyway?
Bank accounts often pay interest, and the bank needs to send that to the IRS with your SSN. It's fairly reasonable to require the SSN to open an account, since even if the account doesn't pay interest now it might in the future.
Some interest paid on debt is deductible, so you run into similar requirements there.
Why the push to go from three types back down to two? Sheesh, the gas giants are so much larger than the rocky planets maybe only those should be called planets. Reclassifying Pluto as a large "Kuiper belt object" makes little more sense that making Earth a large "Close orbiting asteroid".
Nitrogen is some other oxidizer. Nitrogen is the fourth most electronegative element (after F, O and Cl). Fluorine is usually much better for burning things than oxygen, thanks to both its high electronegativity and the weak single bonds between atoms. Nitrogen is quite poor, mostly because its strong triple bonds would usually be more stable that the reaction products, but titanium also is a triple bonder, and it can burn in nitrogen.
The modern definition of oxidation is that it is just the opposite of reduction, so it doesn't have to actually involve oxygen.
That almost makes sense, but the yard would be rather long.
As an alternative, let's make the inch shorter for more precise work: Say by a factor of 2.54. Then we can make a foot ten of these new inches, and a ten foot yard would be just about the right length.
"...but if the universe has no bounds, it is still not finite"
The universe could indeed have no bounds and still be finite, the same way a two dimensional creature living on the surface of a sphere sees a finite space with no boundaries.
RAW files are smaller than lossless TIFF, and contain more data: Standard TIFF is 8 bits/color but RAW is often 10. Raw is smaller because most cameras don't get full color for each pixel.
I have to wonder if the corporate lobbying pressure has shifted as the big players have been hit with more and more patent infringement lawsuits in the USA. Of course the free software complaints must have helped, but I've always had the impression that these bureaucrats listened more to industry.
I think we will get that level of storage, and in the not too distant future, but I think you are overly credulous if you think it's going to come from the Colossal Storage Corp. (the company behind the story you linked to). When you see a small unknown company claim to be among the world leaders in several advanced technology areas, especially when their web site seems designed to attract investors, be very skeptical!
Solar PV is currently too expensive for baseline power. Mass production would probably bring them down to a level that could support our civilization without too much hardship, but it won't be cheaper than coal for a long time (without a steep carbon emission tax, at least).
Saying that large windmills run at low RPMs hides the fact the tips move fast enough to kill birds, and as an unnatural danger they aren't as good at avoiding them as you might think. In flyways with a high concentration of birds I think windmills will be found to be unacceptable, but that's probably a very small percentage of suitable wind power generation sites. While wind could supply much or perhaps even all the electricity we use today, I doubt it can replace all the petroleum we use: That's something we will need to do in the long run.
To use either as part of the baseline supply of electricity better energy storage is needed, and I haven't heard of significant progress there in a long time. I think that is more of an indication of insufficient demand than a lack of practical approaches, but I'm not certain of that, especially since cheap and efficient storage of electricity would be very useful today for handling peak power demands.
I don't believe the technology yet exists to manufacture the sort of lattice defects always found in natural diamonds.
I also think even the best artificial diamonds still have some defects, and they are of a sort not found in nature. It is getting to the point where it takes sophisticated equipment to tell the difference, but some people will probably always be willing to pay more for a provably natural diamond, even though the synthetic ones are better in every practical way.
There may well not be enough recoverable oil in the world that burning it all would cause severe environmental damage, but the key would then be what happens next. If we run out of oil without having a more environmentally friendly alternative ready, the most likely result will be large scale conversion of coal to gasoline. Once we start down this road it will be hard to stop, and there is enough coal in the world to keep pumping out carbon dioxide for a long time.
I'm not sure that burning that much coal will lead to a catastrophe, but I'm by no means certain that it won't; and I'd rather not find out the hard way. I do know that mining and liquefying all that coal would create a mess I don't want to have.
I'm not sure what the best replacement for gas powered cars is for personal transportation, but I think we'd better find something soon.
Sounds good. What will it take to store all that data? If we can store a bit in 100 daltons at a module level then we can keep the weight to under a gram. The future's looking good...
That sounds promising. I have a hard time watching WMF files if I can't download them, but Flash usually works. Now if only ABC had more shows that I actually wanted to watch...
Money to the EFF could indeed help, if there is enough of it.
Just voting isn't going to help unless there is a candidate who has taken a position on the issue, and those are hard to find. More useful would be to become active in the nominating process to get a supportive candidate on the ballot. You better make sure he's a true believer before you put a lot of effort into his campaign though, or he's likely to change his mind later when someone outbids you.
Look what happened to the Republican's "Contract With America". After a half-hearted effort, those items that would have worked against incumbents being re-elected were abandoned, and later the semi-idealist Gingrich was replaced with the pragmatic DeLay. If you can't drum up enough outrage in the general public to make many of them vote with you, and that is very hard in the area of patent reform or other EFF issues, most politicians views will slowly gravitate to align with those who have the money.
After reading the blurb several time, I think that the message was supposed to be that there is a concurrence for support of Linux among Microsoft's rivals, but it's hard to be sure.
This reminds me of the experiment where people listen to words like, snow, ice, wind, winter, slush and Popsicle. If you ask them later if cold was in the list, they usually think so. Here we have a bunch of words that somehow give the impression that Microsoft is being challenged, even though they are not organized into a coherent sentence.
Slashdot Mirror
Calling the idea that life on Earth may have originated on Mars panspermia is going a bit far. It's hard to come up with a plausible method for true panspermia, but exogenesis, which is what we are talking about here, does seem reasonable. The same methods whereby life may have developed on Earth look just as likely on Mars.
Since Mars is so much smaller than Earth, it probably cooled and formed a crust first. If life developed on Mars, it may well have done so while it was still impossible here. It appears to be possible for life to make the trip from Mars to Earth in impact ejecta and still be viable on arrival, although perhaps further study will show otherwise.
This is all just supposition, but it is a basis to think about what to look for to establish which of these is correct: There is no native life on Mars (proving a negative can be very hard, though); there is life on Mars and it developed independently (the most interesting possibility); or life developed on one and got transferred to the other. Until we find life on Mars, or do a thorough search and find none, we probably will have no good reason to believe or disbelieve any of these.
The people who thought they found evidence for life from Mars in that meteorite were probably wrong, but I'm glad they were looking.
The GPLv2 license with the later versions clause is of course compatible with GPLv3, but other than that I don't think so. GPLv3 adds more restrictions, which is prohibited by v2; and if GPLv3 is made compatible with the v2 only license it would be pointless.
If they are going to start reusing project names, why not use one that had a better result? I propose the new moon missions be called Project Gemini!
Hmm, I have to think that felony littering convictions are pretty rare. Otherwise I agree with you.
First, if you are working and earning money, fully fund an IRA account (Roth is probably best for you). An SP500 or total stock market no-load index fund would be a suitable choice.
Second, if you have the luxury of a small cash reserve, put it in a money market fund. Shop for a good rate, but if it's not insured only use one provided by a solid company, like Fidelity, Vanguard, etc. If you want to take a small amount of risk you could try a short term bond fund (Vanguard is a good choice because of their low expenses), but that's probably the most risk you should take in your situation.
When the loans start to accrue interest and you start to earn money, cash out most of your investments (not the IRA) to pay down the loans. Just try to keep enough money in liquid accounts to cover your expenses for a few months.
When you eventually pay off the loans and start investing, avoid commodities, loaded (sales charge over 1%) mutual funds, limited partnerships and almost anything an investment counselor tries to get you to buy through them. Do not put a lot of your investments into the company you work for, that's too risky. Do diversify. If you don't want to be too actively involved in your investments index funds are good, or individual stocks or specialty funds if you want to actively manage them. Income producing real estate can be good if you understand it and are willing to put in the effort it requires.
According to the article, these should be too high to be vulnerable to MANPADS.
I suspect that some of those parents refused transfusions because they believed what the Bible said (in their eyes) was more likely to be right than the doctor. Not right morally but scientifically: The AIDS cases caused by transfusions were a powerful reinforcement of biblical infallibility in medical matters for those who already believed transfusions were prohibited. The fact that the number of these transmissions was statistically small at the time (except for hemophiliacs) and now almost zero does not matter; they think the risk of that and other similar unknown dangers are too high to risk.
It's not hard to find examples where doctors have been wrong about the safety of treatments in the past, so we know they are not infallible. The Bible on the other hand...
Silly as it seems, I have known people who held these views and tried to convince me of them. When you realize that many of the same people believe the Earth is under 10,000 years old and that there is no such thing as "macro evolution", you can understand how hopeless it can be to try to convince them their medical ideas are wrong.
As the guy in charge of computers for a small company, I've seen a lot of damage caused by people installing programs they saw advertised for free. I've often explained to people that while free programs may or may not be ok, a free program that can afford to advertise should always be avoided. The cost of that type of free program is more than someone in business can afford.
I use Open Office and I recommend it to others. On the other hand, I've trained a lot of people to avoid it once they've seen the ad.
(From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frog)
Bank accounts often pay interest, and the bank needs to send that to the IRS with your SSN. It's fairly reasonable to require the SSN to open an account, since even if the account doesn't pay interest now it might in the future.
Some interest paid on debt is deductible, so you run into similar requirements there.
We currently have three types of planets based on material:
Earth like, 4 samples
Jupiter like, 4 samples
Pluto like, 2 samples (including Xena)
Why the push to go from three types back down to two? Sheesh, the gas giants are so much larger than the rocky planets maybe only those should be called planets. Reclassifying Pluto as a large "Kuiper belt object" makes little more sense that making Earth a large "Close orbiting asteroid".
Nitrogen is some other oxidizer. Nitrogen is the fourth most electronegative element (after F, O and Cl). Fluorine is usually much better for burning things than oxygen, thanks to both its high electronegativity and the weak single bonds between atoms. Nitrogen is quite poor, mostly because its strong triple bonds would usually be more stable that the reaction products, but titanium also is a triple bonder, and it can burn in nitrogen.
The modern definition of oxidation is that it is just the opposite of reduction, so it doesn't have to actually involve oxygen.
That almost makes sense, but the yard would be rather long.
As an alternative, let's make the inch shorter for more precise work: Say by a factor of 2.54. Then we can make a foot ten of these new inches, and a ten foot yard would be just about the right length.
"...but if the universe has no bounds, it is still not finite"
The universe could indeed have no bounds and still be finite, the same way a two dimensional creature living on the surface of a sphere sees a finite space with no boundaries.
RAW files are smaller than lossless TIFF, and contain more data: Standard TIFF is 8 bits/color but RAW is often 10.
Raw is smaller because most cameras don't get full color for each pixel.
I have to wonder if the corporate lobbying pressure has shifted as the big players have been hit with more and more patent infringement lawsuits in the USA. Of course the free software complaints must have helped, but I've always had the impression that these bureaucrats listened more to industry.
I think we will get that level of storage, and in the not too distant future, but I think you are overly credulous if you think it's going to come from the Colossal Storage Corp. (the company behind the story you linked to). When you see a small unknown company claim to be among the world leaders in several advanced technology areas, especially when their web site seems designed to attract investors, be very skeptical!
Solar PV is currently too expensive for baseline power. Mass production would probably bring them down to a level that could support our civilization without too much hardship, but it won't be cheaper than coal for a long time (without a steep carbon emission tax, at least).
Saying that large windmills run at low RPMs hides the fact the tips move fast enough to kill birds, and as an unnatural danger they aren't as good at avoiding them as you might think. In flyways with a high concentration of birds I think windmills will be found to be unacceptable, but that's probably a very small percentage of suitable wind power generation sites. While wind could supply much or perhaps even all the electricity we use today, I doubt it can replace all the petroleum we use: That's something we will need to do in the long run.
To use either as part of the baseline supply of electricity better energy storage is needed, and I haven't heard of significant progress there in a long time. I think that is more of an indication of insufficient demand than a lack of practical approaches, but I'm not certain of that, especially since cheap and efficient storage of electricity would be very useful today for handling peak power demands.
I don't believe the technology yet exists to manufacture the sort of lattice defects always found in natural diamonds.
I also think even the best artificial diamonds still have some defects, and they are of a sort not found in nature. It is getting to the point where it takes sophisticated equipment to tell the difference, but some people will probably always be willing to pay more for a provably natural diamond, even though the synthetic ones are better in every practical way.
Calling this version of cosmology a theory seems way too generous.
There may well not be enough recoverable oil in the world that burning it all would cause severe environmental damage, but the key would then be what happens next. If we run out of oil without having a more environmentally friendly alternative ready, the most likely result will be large scale conversion of coal to gasoline. Once we start down this road it will be hard to stop, and there is enough coal in the world to keep pumping out carbon dioxide for a long time.
I'm not sure that burning that much coal will lead to a catastrophe, but I'm by no means certain that it won't; and I'd rather not find out the hard way. I do know that mining and liquefying all that coal would create a mess I don't want to have.
I'm not sure what the best replacement for gas powered cars is for personal transportation, but I think we'd better find something soon.
Sounds good. What will it take to store all that data? If we can store a bit in 100 daltons at a module level then we can keep the weight to under a gram. The future's looking good...
"They are using Flash for the video"
That sounds promising. I have a hard time watching WMF files if I can't download them, but Flash usually works. Now if only ABC had more shows that I actually wanted to watch...
Money to the EFF could indeed help, if there is enough of it.
Just voting isn't going to help unless there is a candidate who has taken a position on the issue, and those are hard to find. More useful would be to become active in the nominating process to get a supportive candidate on the ballot. You better make sure he's a true believer before you put a lot of effort into his campaign though, or he's likely to change his mind later when someone outbids you.
Look what happened to the Republican's "Contract With America". After a half-hearted effort, those items that would have worked against incumbents being re-elected were abandoned, and later the semi-idealist Gingrich was replaced with the pragmatic DeLay. If you can't drum up enough outrage in the general public to make many of them vote with you, and that is very hard in the area of patent reform or other EFF issues, most politicians views will slowly gravitate to align with those who have the money.
After reading the blurb several time, I think that the message was supposed to be that there is a concurrence for support of Linux among Microsoft's rivals, but it's hard to be sure.
This reminds me of the experiment where people listen to words like, snow, ice, wind, winter, slush and Popsicle. If you ask them later if cold was in the list, they usually think so. Here we have a bunch of words that somehow give the impression that Microsoft is being challenged, even though they are not organized into a coherent sentence.