From what I've read in the setiathome forums, the SETI Institute/Allen Array has no plans to utilize setiathome software for data analysis. Setiathome will remain strictly a Project Phoenix (Arecibo-based) project.
It's important to note that there is no one single "SETI" organization that controls all ET research. Project Phoenix at Berkeley is one, SETI Institute is another, the optical SETI project at Harvard is a third...there are multitudes.
I am suddenly drawing a connection between this incident and my mom's passing to brain cancer several years later. Now my remarks seem so incredibly naive...
Slashdotters, is there a plausible cause-and-effect here?
I have a distinct memory of being four or five years old and accidentally breaking a mercury thermometer in my parents' bathroom. I remember being fascinated by all the tiny little mercury beads that formed on the carpet, and also how ticked off my parents were about it. But my mom just grabbed our "tank" vacuum cleaner and sucked up all the beads.
Sure, it's not exactly environmentally friendly, but it didn't cause us any great distress and certainly didn't cost $2000 to clean up.
And I think CFLs are less easily shattered than incandescents anyway. They're pretty solidly built.
Carl Sagan wrote something similar in his novel Contact. Cancer-stricken S.R. Hadden fakes his own death, then launches himself in a small ship away from the solar system. He stays conscious to catch the views as he passes by the gas giants, then enters a deep freeze, hoping to be awakened in a few million years by a passerby alien who can cure his disease.
SCOTT: "Lad, I was drinking scotch about a hundred years before you were born and I can tell you that whatever this is, it is definitely not scotch."
DATA (to Waiter): "I believe I may be of some assistance. Captain Scott is unaware of the existence of synthehol."
SCOTT: "Synthehol?"
DATA: "Yes. It is an alcohol substitute which is now normally served aboard starships. It simulates the appearance, smell, and taste of alcohol, but the intoxicating effects can be easily dismissed."
SCOTT: "You're not quite... human are you?"
DATA: "No, sir. I am an android. My name is Commander Data."
SCOTT: "Synthetic scotch and synthetic commanders..."
DATA: "I believe Guinan does keep a limited supply of non-syntheholic products. Perhaps one of them would be to your liking."
Data bends down and reaches under the bar... then stands up and puts a very old bottle of a green liquid on the bar.
SCOTT: "What is it?"
DATA: "It is..." (tries to inspect the label) "It is..." (takes a sniff of it) "...it is green."
Fascinating stuff, man. I always read the "electric comets" stuff and shrugged it off as more crazy pseudoscientific nonsense, without ever delving into the actual theory. I just wish I was knowledgeable enough to make a fair comparison between this radical theory and the more traditional ones...I will have to read more....
Show me the credible research that proves that we have an undetected binary companion on the fringes of our solar system, or that many of the small moons of the gas giants really were recently captured into stable orbits, or perhaps some documents or statistical data that proves there is a worldwide conspiracy to cover it all up. As far as I can see, you don't HAVE anything credible to prove your point -- you make very broad inferences from some weak hypotheses, and because you WANT it to be true, you believe it HAS to be true.
Perhaps the Kodiak Launch Complex is not being referred to as the first commercial spaceport because it may not really be a spaceport. I think the term "port" implies that vehicles can both leave and arrive at the same destination, but Kodiak just puts payloads into orbit. I only know of three true spaceports that exist in the United States (Edwards Air Force Base, White Sands Space Harbor, and Cape Canaveral) and they are all run exclusively for government vehicles.
But Pluto's definition is not a hard fact we can determine through trial and error, it's just a name. We could call Pluto and the other small spherical objects in our solar system "cosmic peanuts" but that wouldn't change any of their properties. The International Astronomical Union VOTED on it at their last conference -- it's not something they really "discovered" by staring through their telescopes for a long time -- and the new "dwarf planet" term has received quite a bit of criticism from people all over the scientific community. For example, their choice of words is pretty vague: if a "dwarf human" is still a human, why is a "dwarf planet" not also a planet?
Not to mention the increasing prevalence of light pollution and radio wave interference. Aside from asking everyone to turn everything off, space-based observatories are the only way to counter this problem.
Col. Robert Iverson: People. Doctors Zimsky and Keyes? You guys are our resident geophysicists, so what do you make of this? Dr. Conrad Zimsky: The mantle is a chemical hodgepodge of, a, variety of elements... Dr. Ed 'Braz' Brazzelton: Say it with me: "I don't know."
Slashdot Mirror
From what I've read in the setiathome forums, the SETI Institute/Allen Array has no plans to utilize setiathome software for data analysis. Setiathome will remain strictly a Project Phoenix (Arecibo-based) project. It's important to note that there is no one single "SETI" organization that controls all ET research. Project Phoenix at Berkeley is one, SETI Institute is another, the optical SETI project at Harvard is a third...there are multitudes.
Seems it's only a matter of time now before we can image a planet with pretty city lights on the dark side.
"Life forms.... You tiny little life forms..... You precious little life forms.... Where are you?"
The Document Crematory!! Incinerates all of your sensitive documents, transforming them into completely unreadable ash.
Ah shit...
I am suddenly drawing a connection between this incident and my mom's passing to brain cancer several years later. Now my remarks seem so incredibly naive...
Slashdotters, is there a plausible cause-and-effect here?
I have a distinct memory of being four or five years old and accidentally breaking a mercury thermometer in my parents' bathroom. I remember being fascinated by all the tiny little mercury beads that formed on the carpet, and also how ticked off my parents were about it. But my mom just grabbed our "tank" vacuum cleaner and sucked up all the beads. Sure, it's not exactly environmentally friendly, but it didn't cause us any great distress and certainly didn't cost $2000 to clean up. And I think CFLs are less easily shattered than incandescents anyway. They're pretty solidly built.
Carl Sagan wrote something similar in his novel Contact. Cancer-stricken S.R. Hadden fakes his own death, then launches himself in a small ship away from the solar system. He stays conscious to catch the views as he passes by the gas giants, then enters a deep freeze, hoping to be awakened in a few million years by a passerby alien who can cure his disease.
Relics, TNG episode 130.
SCOTT (to Waiter): "What in blazes is this?"
WAITER (confused): "Didn't you order Scotch?"
SCOTT: "Lad, I was drinking scotch about a hundred years before you were born and I can tell you that whatever this is, it is definitely not scotch."
DATA (to Waiter): "I believe I may be of some assistance. Captain Scott is unaware of the existence of synthehol."
SCOTT: "Synthehol?"
DATA: "Yes. It is an alcohol substitute which is now normally served aboard starships. It simulates the appearance, smell, and taste of alcohol, but the intoxicating effects can be easily dismissed."
SCOTT: "You're not quite... human are you?"
DATA: "No, sir. I am an android. My name is Commander Data."
SCOTT: "Synthetic scotch and synthetic commanders..."
DATA: "I believe Guinan does keep a limited supply of non-syntheholic products. Perhaps one of them would be to your liking."
Data bends down and reaches under the bar... then stands up and puts a very old bottle of a green liquid on the bar.
SCOTT: "What is it?"
DATA: "It is..." (tries to inspect the label) "It is..." (takes a sniff of it) "...it is green."
Can these "nanofibers" be used to make a space elevator ribbon? Or does that system require a different method of employing carbon nanotubes?
Fascinating stuff, man. I always read the "electric comets" stuff and shrugged it off as more crazy pseudoscientific nonsense, without ever delving into the actual theory. I just wish I was knowledgeable enough to make a fair comparison between this radical theory and the more traditional ones...I will have to read more....
News for Nerds, Calculators that Matter
I'll ask again -- show me.
Stop the Dvorak
Show me the credible research that proves that we have an undetected binary companion on the fringes of our solar system, or that many of the small moons of the gas giants really were recently captured into stable orbits, or perhaps some documents or statistical data that proves there is a worldwide conspiracy to cover it all up. As far as I can see, you don't HAVE anything credible to prove your point -- you make very broad inferences from some weak hypotheses, and because you WANT it to be true, you believe it HAS to be true.
What the hell are you smoking?
Perhaps the Kodiak Launch Complex is not being referred to as the first commercial spaceport because it may not really be a spaceport. I think the term "port" implies that vehicles can both leave and arrive at the same destination, but Kodiak just puts payloads into orbit. I only know of three true spaceports that exist in the United States (Edwards Air Force Base, White Sands Space Harbor, and Cape Canaveral) and they are all run exclusively for government vehicles.
"In the event of a collision with a huge, fiery meteor, oxygen masks will drop from the panel above you..."
If they don't track IP addresses, what's to stop the students from trying to break into, say, the registar office's servers to alter their grades?
wtf? I've always loved that poster, but where is there a misused apostrophe anywhere in the posting?
You're absolutely right, NASA has never screwed up a Mars probe mission. Ever.
But Pluto's definition is not a hard fact we can determine through trial and error, it's just a name. We could call Pluto and the other small spherical objects in our solar system "cosmic peanuts" but that wouldn't change any of their properties. The International Astronomical Union VOTED on it at their last conference -- it's not something they really "discovered" by staring through their telescopes for a long time -- and the new "dwarf planet" term has received quite a bit of criticism from people all over the scientific community. For example, their choice of words is pretty vague: if a "dwarf human" is still a human, why is a "dwarf planet" not also a planet?
Not to mention the increasing prevalence of light pollution and radio wave interference. Aside from asking everyone to turn everything off, space-based observatories are the only way to counter this problem.
Col. Robert Iverson: People. Doctors Zimsky and Keyes? You guys are our resident geophysicists, so what do you make of this?
Dr. Conrad Zimsky: The mantle is a chemical hodgepodge of, a, variety of elements...
Dr. Ed 'Braz' Brazzelton: Say it with me: "I don't know."
Looks fake to me. I can't find this supposed Kermit mission anywhere on Google.