Wrote a novel called WE that while most attribute to the birthplace of the concept of Utopia/Dystopia within science fiction, it is very applicable to religion and the concept of God and faith.
It is a very old question/premise. Control VS Freedom and Knowledge VS Ignorance
If you think about it Heaven is pretty much the embodiment of a "Utopia" if you believe what many religions expound. The basic premise is that God has a bunch of rules that you must follow, and you get in. Fail to do so, and you go someplace else. So you give up control for happiness. The question is asked, you have your Freedom, but are you more happy for it. The same can be said of Knowledge, which was represented by the apple, that was used to kick Adam/Eve out of the garden of Eden (another Utopia representation). Again God is demanding control for your happiness, when when they elect for individual choice, are cast out. Belief in the "leader" can bring comfort to some, and also believing whatever they are told, not knowing many of the ills. One could also argue that Freedom and Knowledge might just make you miserable.
I won't ruin the book to say what happens in the end, but throughout the book there are many religious parallels (and general philosophic arguments) .
Anyway worth a read for anyone that wants to think a bit more critically about the topic as a whole which isn't entirely one sided. Even has a bit of a dig using evolution, which if you think about the rhetoric today, must have been a pretty big deal when the book was written in the 1920's.
No. There are not two types. There is just one. Simply being annoying isn't a separate branch or something.
Example Vegans. One type. They don't eat meat or dairy products. That is it.
There are Vegans who do this quietly as a personal preference, and those that expound it at every chance they can to say meat is murder, and how disgusting you are for doing so. There is a name for that, they are called assholes. It doesn't make them more or less Vegan.
Just because you are Muslim, Christian, Atheist, or Vegan, does not preclude the chance that you might also fall into the category of asshole.
That said, technically many of the actually branches of Religion have actual tenants about spreading the faith, or converting the heathens, while Atheism is simply a lack of belief in any of that nonsense. So in actuality some basically incorporate being an asshole within their faith, while for an Atheist it might merely be a personal choice...:)
Assuming the closest is even viable, which it probably isn't, 4.2 Light Years = 39735067984839.36 Kilometers. The fastest thing (only thing) man has sent out of our solar system is Voyager 1, which at its current speed, if it was pointed in the right direction would take about 73,775 years to reach the target. Considering you probably don't want to run into it at that speed, you will have to accelerate and decelerate. Which it doesn't have the fuel for (never mind its RTG energy source is only good for 60-80 years), but even if it did would roughly double the time to reach the intended target to about 147,550 years. OK well that's not quite true, it would only add an insignificant amount of time because not a lot of time was actually spent to accelerate in the first place. However in the example below where you do not coast for tens of thousands of years, and accelerate til the midway point and then immediately start to decelerate it would double whatever you speed VS distance is anyway.
Sure you could accelerate and decelerate much harder than that to get there much faster, approaching whatever value of c is currently capable at launch. However by any measure, unless some magic energy source and method of propulsion is devised, the required energy at least at today's standards would require carting around the hydrogen energy mass of our sun for the trip. Some other methods of insitu material gathering such as ram scoops picking up interstellar dust are as likely as the fiction, as again unless some dark matter type thing which is everywhere (presumably) is harnessed, the amount of mass available is pretty low, space as it turns out is pretty damn empty.
Not to mention the weirdness of relative time as one approaches c on a ship compared to Earth, as while it may take less than the 75k years voyager would, here on Earth many more years will have elapsed. As to how many, I have no idea, that is beyond my math calculating ability (as is generally most of what I have currently written I am sure will be pointed out).
Never mind trying to maintain a ship, machinery, technology, or even a society that long!
More likely colonization will involve self replicating and regenerating robotic ship carrying a genetic payload and an informational database (likely with a terra forming mission proceeding it). Which would be more like favorable seeding for similar evolution and life to occur, than an actual "colony". Then again, that would also require pretty adaptive programming and AI, which would likely mean we would probably be fertilizer for our robotic overlords petunia plants.
So I guess I am saying as a thought experiment it is sort of interesting, but at this point (or any really foreseeable point in our future), it is all a bit far fetched by even the loosest standards.
Errr... I would agree with the whole vaccine thing, but GMOs?
There are loads of problems and issues with GMOs. They are pretty much the equivalent to what scientists use to do by intentionally introducing non-native species to take care of an annoying local species. Which we now know to be "a very bad idea". All ready insects are developing immunity responses to the new strains, while the new strains kill off all the variation.
Anyway all the sciency technical stuff aside, one of the more disturbing things about GMOs is the fact the companies (most of which can be called Montensento apparently) patent these strains. Which is pretty much evil. It is a near perfect business strategy of course:
1) Create product 2) Patent product 3) Have product literally kill off all competing products 4) When no one has a choice anymore, charge whatever you like, and sue everyone else into oblivion
As the saying goes, don't attribute to malice, what could be incompetence (or something like that, I am paraphrasing, can't be bothered to look up actual quote).
However I think the inverse holds true for Politicians. You might think they are making decisions like stupid morons, but very likely it is a calculated response, usually one that is A) going to win votes among the stupid that believe that drivel, B) ideological which will win them points within their party by towing the party line, or C) simply to be partisan to make your opponent fail and you don't care much as to how.
Never mind E) about budget and money. Killing science budget and applying it to something else that can further your interests, or making or taking positions that are friendly to those interests that funded your last political campaign or potentially your next one.
All very cynical I know, but the truth usually is.
Your password is super safe and invulnerable. However you signed a EULA (that is 862 pages long, stored in some obscure location, that can be changed at will) by glancing at it for about 5 seconds to find the next button, that basically gives the rights to all the information you were protecting in the first place, and your first born son, to the company that stores the information, who can and will sell it all to the highest bidder anyway.
Now a days you don't have to worry so much about some criminal beating you with a wrench, however you do have to worry about the NSA going to everywhere you actually store information online and forcing them to give the information over "voluntarily" by creating laws under some pretense and threatening legal repercussions, or by just doing it illegally anyway using the usual scare tactics. The same can happen to you personally, and they can pretty much throw you in jail for an infinite amount of time until you produce the password in question anyway.
Anyway criminals are NOT brute forcing huge lists of passwords in the first place. They either take advantage of terrible security in the first place (Hey lets store all the passwords in an unencrypted text file which anyone can access if they know where to look!), software vulnerabilities (Hey your password is super safe, too bad there is that gaping security flaw that lets people bypass passwords altogether!), or social engineering (Hey sure I will give out your password, I'm an IT guy that gets paid 10$ an hour and I really don't give a shit anyway).
So while in an interesting sort of puzzle way this is neat, the actual protections it will afford you is probably very little.
I love how this sort of thing is always focused on the applications, the programmer, bad decisions, etc...
The focus should be on how this is all enabled in the first place, which is the crazy financial ponzi scheme which is wall street.
If you look at those glowing examples of success stories, and their details you start to see a few commonalities.
You get companies like Facebook going public to a valuation of like 100 BILLION dollars. Which EVERYONE even non-technophiles know is total horse shit, however spurs all sorts of folks trying to speculate on the stock, or trying to screw their neighbor. All these successes are only so much as their stock is worth. These these fictional companies, go and buy other startups using this inflated stock, creating more fictional successes with more inflated stock, ad nausum. Eventually people figure out that the stock is either worthless, or at the very least, not worth nearly what the snakeoil salesmen would have you believe. Then the bubble bursts, people lose everything, and the timer is reset. While hopefully the programmers managed to dump all their stock to believers prior to it being worthless. It isn't that these people had bad ideas, or products all the time, it is how they are funded, and the valuations and behavior of the stupid financial system. Get big enough and it gathers its own momentum from people just willing it to succeed, but will alone is not enough for the long term as any ponzi scheme will show. Those at the top do make out like bandits, however 95% end up being losers. Then again, probably how all Billionaires are born (unless they literally are born that way...)
Just playing devils advocate (I am sure there is a joke in there somewhere)...
Anyway, as I understand it, evolution is about the selection of traits for survival, This usually involves environment, eating/not getting eaten, and procreation.
It very well could be that Zebra's with their short hair, developed stripes to hide from biting insects, as their survival was significantly impacted enough to warrant the change. While on the insect side of things, perhaps they have enough of a food source that missing out on the Zebra buffet isn't a significant survival issue, and thus never bothered to evolve any eyeballs capable to seeing them for lunch (or perhaps the Zebra evolution isn't all that effective anyway).
What is more interesting to me however, if this explanation is the case, then why didn't Zebra's just evolve longer hair? Then again, I suppose it is hot, so that might not work out so well. Then again not everything has a lot of hair or is striped in those parts either. I am pretty sure evolution isn't really all that exact anyway, which is partially why it takes so damn long to produce changes over generations. I liken it to randomly programming solutions to a problem, some are better than others, but some are pretty good and stick around for quite awhile, or are just good enough, though over time the best solution will get used more often eventually.
Also mixed into the mess is not only physical things like hot/cold, eat/eaten, procreation, but behavior based on those traits. Basically at which point is a stripey Zebra more sexy to another Zebra as that is perceived as better unconsciously. Oh baby, that's nice stripes you got there... I have to think there is also a significant lag time between physical evolution, and behavioral evolution, as the one pretty much has to occur before the other. Perhaps that is the point, if a trait sticks around long enough, it sort of proves itself a bit, which then kicks in the behavior modification, which further reinforces the trait...
Anyway interesting to try and figure it all out, even if only a thought experiment.
Until very recently the US would intentionally degrade the GPS signal to all but military traffic (all the time). Considering the major military actions going on in the Ukraine by Russia one could suppose this is actually the case, particularly if perhaps the Ukraine military also uses the same system... I would not be terribly surprised if this is the case. The US did the same when they invaded Iraq.
Unless the gibberish it was transmitting was: 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42. Then someone needs to press a damn button!
Why is the German ghost talking to you in English?
Personally I can't sit through any of them, or those medium shows, makes me uncomfortable, but not because I am scared or amazed, but because they are so disturbingly bad.
Apple owns the patent for not showing an apple logo in instructional videos, thus in order to not violate the patent and get sued they MUST use an apple logo in their instructional video. It's simple really...
"Then you got to get sent to a slam, where they tell you you'll never see daylight again. You dig up a doctor, and you pay him 20 menthol Kools to do a surgical shine job on your eyeballs."
What a drama queen, all he had to do was take his contacts out...
I liked Darmok, it was one that stuck in my brain, and always remember the lines. It was really the only episode that sort of points out universal translator aside it very well could be that aliens being so aliens, it may be next to impossible for real understanding.
However the episode that I perhaps I liked the best was Lower Decks. Main characters play relatively minor roles, and shows the ship from the junior officer perspective. Apart from the corny bartender I thought it was really well done. I also thought it was one of the more poingent and sad episodes. One of the few that actually choked me up a bit.
"...knowing that the aircraft still had some fuel, but that it would have run out before the next automated ping."
Seems pretty straight forward to me... Ran out of fuel over the Ocean.
As to How/Why? 1) Navigational Error: Instruments on wrong course, path that cannot complete given fuel. 2) Pilot Error: Asleep at the wheel so to speak. 3) Terrorists: Remember hearing about another flight that was hijacked, ordered to go someplace, pilots said we don't have the fuel, Terrorists don't believe them."
Ultimately without some evidence, a mystery.
Also "no survivors"? Why because you didn't find any? Did you look? No? Found wreckage? Anyway at this point given how long it has been it is pretty unlikely but still.
1) They are basically countrymen or close to it, and probably didn't feel like shooting their own. 2) Half your brothers in arms defected to the other side, probably really don't feel like shooting them either. 3) This is the Russian armed forces who have come in strength and prepared, given situation how wise to provoke?
To my mind this is a lot like Canada and Quebec relations.
It would be like Canada deciding Trade options between France and England, where it is likely that Canada might decide to go with England. France with a lot to lose might invade Quebec. Within Quebec there are those that identify with one or the other, but most with France and are French speaking. Quebec has also talked about independence in the past, and also had its own referendum which much of Canada called into question its validity. The Canadian Armed Forces stationed in Quebec might be put in a similar situation. Odds are they are not going to want to fight their brothers in arms.
The difference with Ukraine which would make it even harder to do so, is close physical location with Russian counterparts, in that it is just across the border, not across an entire ocean. Also while Ukraine has a storied history, it was part of the Soviet Union along with Russia in the very recent past (comparatively speaking). I don't think being a coward really enters into it.
Many are probably like "Fsck it, let the politicians figure it the hell out, I'm going home."
Evolution is defined by a species ability to survive and procreate. I am pretty sure the survivability of the Duck would be inversely proportional it proclivity to trying to mate with a crocodile.
I don't know if it is just me or not, but the most fascinating thing would be the design and transport of construction machines. Automated perhaps? Most of the ideas I have read about a moon base involves being under ground. The primary reason being protection from solar radiation (unless they come up with some novel way of protection). That would mean earth moving and mining equipment, which isn't light or particularly delicate. Also because of a lack of weather system, moon dust is much more abrasive than here on Earth apparently, which may play havoc on maintaining any design.
Another method might be water shielding prefab modules. Then again the amount of water required would likely mean the structure would have to be very strong, and probably heavy. It would also require a large source of water, and even with that a method to extract it.
Then again without a local supply of water it would probably be cost prohibitive to truck it over from earth. Then again that is a job I want, Moon Water Trucker!
Anyway Moon base is maybe getting a bit far ahead of ourselves. Probes. Locate water source. Devise robotic autonomous extraction and storage. Then once you have a supply of water, then start talking moon base. However realistically I think all of that is MUCH longer than 4 years away.
I don't think the poster knows what hardware "enthusiasts" really mean. No one is looking forward to the "e" EXTREME series CPU. Perhaps some people with more money than brains. Enthusiasts want CHEAP hardware that they can then fiddle with to gain big results. Haswell while a decent CPU only really offered better power efficiency and a few more instruction sets that might be potentially useful in a few years. Not exactly a ringing endorsement.
This sort of thing costs $1000+ dollars, so unless you are a rich enthusiast and money is no object, then quite pointless.
To use the Slashdot car analogy, it is comparing a car enthusiast, and Honda creating a race car. The race car costs 5$ million, and unless you are obscenely rich, you aren't going to buy one to run to the grocery store. You might however buy that generation of retail car that uses some of the technology being shown off in the race car, It is that, a showcase of technology, not a reasonable thing, just like the $1000+ dollar video cards, they want to be able to say "see, there we are the best, check this out, now buy our other more reasonably priced chips...". Which if you think about it, means you should probably release the extreme version first dummies.
The primary reason I don't believe in capital punishment, is that the legal system is far from infallible, and it is much easier to reintegrate into society after many years of incarceration than it is to reattach a head.
However yes, it is much the same, only you are saying, we would execute you, but we occasionally make mistakes, so just in case we will keep you around in the off chance we did. Some might say that life imprisonment is more expensive, however I believe the US system has shown that this isn't really the case.
There has been more than a couple of cases where a prisoner doing life has been exonerated. Also this would usually immediately involve a civil case, that would likely award the person a lot of money, which might not give back the years, but might make integration back into society a bit easier.
"Have you been vaccinated for the following..." "No, because of some crazy reason..." "Admission to Country Denied, please put your clothing into the fire receptacle on your way out."
When the plague zombies eventually die out, a new and fertile land will be ready for colonists...
I agree. Why not just torture them to death and be done with it. You are on no higher moral ground for doing it virtually using drugs.
In the end, it comes down to what a society feels is important to do about crime and "justice". 1) Punishment 2) Rehab 3) Isolation
The article seems to say that for odious crimes, only punishment is the answer. I think most enlightened societies would probably agree, that the purpose is to keep criminals isolated from the rest of society until such a time as they can be re-integrated back into society as a productive member. In some rare cases, where they crime is so odious, it might be best for society as a whole to keep them isolated from society for the rest of their life.
Slashdot Mirror
He already got one, what does he need another for?
Wrote a novel called WE that while most attribute to the birthplace of the concept of Utopia/Dystopia within science fiction, it is very applicable to religion and the concept of God and faith.
It is a very old question/premise. Control VS Freedom and Knowledge VS Ignorance
If you think about it Heaven is pretty much the embodiment of a "Utopia" if you believe what many religions expound. The basic premise is that God has a bunch of rules that you must follow, and you get in. Fail to do so, and you go someplace else. So you give up control for happiness. The question is asked, you have your Freedom, but are you more happy for it. The same can be said of Knowledge, which was represented by the apple, that was used to kick Adam/Eve out of the garden of Eden (another Utopia representation). Again God is demanding control for your happiness, when when they elect for individual choice, are cast out. Belief in the "leader" can bring comfort to some, and also believing whatever they are told, not knowing many of the ills. One could also argue that Freedom and Knowledge might just make you miserable.
I won't ruin the book to say what happens in the end, but throughout the book there are many religious parallels (and general philosophic arguments) .
Anyway worth a read for anyone that wants to think a bit more critically about the topic as a whole which isn't entirely one sided. Even has a bit of a dig using evolution, which if you think about the rhetoric today, must have been a pretty big deal when the book was written in the 1920's.
No. There are not two types. There is just one. Simply being annoying isn't a separate branch or something.
Example Vegans. One type. They don't eat meat or dairy products. That is it.
There are Vegans who do this quietly as a personal preference, and those that expound it at every chance they can to say meat is murder, and how disgusting you are for doing so. There is a name for that, they are called assholes. It doesn't make them more or less Vegan.
Just because you are Muslim, Christian, Atheist, or Vegan, does not preclude the chance that you might also fall into the category of asshole.
That said, technically many of the actually branches of Religion have actual tenants about spreading the faith, or converting the heathens, while Atheism is simply a lack of belief in any of that nonsense. So in actuality some basically incorporate being an asshole within their faith, while for an Atheist it might merely be a personal choice... :)
Assuming the closest is even viable, which it probably isn't, 4.2 Light Years = 39735067984839.36 Kilometers. The fastest thing (only thing) man has sent out of our solar system is Voyager 1, which at its current speed, if it was pointed in the right direction would take about 73,775 years to reach the target. Considering you probably don't want to run into it at that speed, you will have to accelerate and decelerate. Which it doesn't have the fuel for (never mind its RTG energy source is only good for 60-80 years), but even if it did would roughly double the time to reach the intended target to about 147,550 years. OK well that's not quite true, it would only add an insignificant amount of time because not a lot of time was actually spent to accelerate in the first place. However in the example below where you do not coast for tens of thousands of years, and accelerate til the midway point and then immediately start to decelerate it would double whatever you speed VS distance is anyway.
Sure you could accelerate and decelerate much harder than that to get there much faster, approaching whatever value of c is currently capable at launch. However by any measure, unless some magic energy source and method of propulsion is devised, the required energy at least at today's standards would require carting around the hydrogen energy mass of our sun for the trip. Some other methods of insitu material gathering such as ram scoops picking up interstellar dust are as likely as the fiction, as again unless some dark matter type thing which is everywhere (presumably) is harnessed, the amount of mass available is pretty low, space as it turns out is pretty damn empty.
Not to mention the weirdness of relative time as one approaches c on a ship compared to Earth, as while it may take less than the 75k years voyager would, here on Earth many more years will have elapsed. As to how many, I have no idea, that is beyond my math calculating ability (as is generally most of what I have currently written I am sure will be pointed out).
Never mind trying to maintain a ship, machinery, technology, or even a society that long!
More likely colonization will involve self replicating and regenerating robotic ship carrying a genetic payload and an informational database (likely with a terra forming mission proceeding it). Which would be more like favorable seeding for similar evolution and life to occur, than an actual "colony". Then again, that would also require pretty adaptive programming and AI, which would likely mean we would probably be fertilizer for our robotic overlords petunia plants.
So I guess I am saying as a thought experiment it is sort of interesting, but at this point (or any really foreseeable point in our future), it is all a bit far fetched by even the loosest standards.
Errr... I would agree with the whole vaccine thing, but GMOs?
There are loads of problems and issues with GMOs. They are pretty much the equivalent to what scientists use to do by intentionally introducing non-native species to take care of an annoying local species. Which we now know to be "a very bad idea". All ready insects are developing immunity responses to the new strains, while the new strains kill off all the variation.
Anyway all the sciency technical stuff aside, one of the more disturbing things about GMOs is the fact the companies (most of which can be called Montensento apparently) patent these strains. Which is pretty much evil. It is a near perfect business strategy of course:
1) Create product
2) Patent product
3) Have product literally kill off all competing products
4) When no one has a choice anymore, charge whatever you like, and sue everyone else into oblivion
As the saying goes, don't attribute to malice, what could be incompetence (or something like that, I am paraphrasing, can't be bothered to look up actual quote).
However I think the inverse holds true for Politicians. You might think they are making decisions like stupid morons, but very likely it is a calculated response, usually one that is A) going to win votes among the stupid that believe that drivel, B) ideological which will win them points within their party by towing the party line, or C) simply to be partisan to make your opponent fail and you don't care much as to how.
Never mind E) about budget and money. Killing science budget and applying it to something else that can further your interests, or making or taking positions that are friendly to those interests that funded your last political campaign or potentially your next one.
All very cynical I know, but the truth usually is.
Also I forgot about what I call the FB rule.
Your password is super safe and invulnerable. However you signed a EULA (that is 862 pages long, stored in some obscure location, that can be changed at will) by glancing at it for about 5 seconds to find the next button, that basically gives the rights to all the information you were protecting in the first place, and your first born son, to the company that stores the information, who can and will sell it all to the highest bidder anyway.
Crypto is being supplanted by a lack of rights.
Ob. XKCD:
http://xkcd.com/538/
Now a days you don't have to worry so much about some criminal beating you with a wrench, however you do have to worry about the NSA going to everywhere you actually store information online and forcing them to give the information over "voluntarily" by creating laws under some pretense and threatening legal repercussions, or by just doing it illegally anyway using the usual scare tactics. The same can happen to you personally, and they can pretty much throw you in jail for an infinite amount of time until you produce the password in question anyway.
Anyway criminals are NOT brute forcing huge lists of passwords in the first place. They either take advantage of terrible security in the first place (Hey lets store all the passwords in an unencrypted text file which anyone can access if they know where to look!), software vulnerabilities (Hey your password is super safe, too bad there is that gaping security flaw that lets people bypass passwords altogether!), or social engineering (Hey sure I will give out your password, I'm an IT guy that gets paid 10$ an hour and I really don't give a shit anyway).
So while in an interesting sort of puzzle way this is neat, the actual protections it will afford you is probably very little.
I love how this sort of thing is always focused on the applications, the programmer, bad decisions, etc...
The focus should be on how this is all enabled in the first place, which is the crazy financial ponzi scheme which is wall street.
If you look at those glowing examples of success stories, and their details you start to see a few commonalities.
You get companies like Facebook going public to a valuation of like 100 BILLION dollars. Which EVERYONE even non-technophiles know is total horse shit, however spurs all sorts of folks trying to speculate on the stock, or trying to screw their neighbor. All these successes are only so much as their stock is worth. These these fictional companies, go and buy other startups using this inflated stock, creating more fictional successes with more inflated stock, ad nausum. Eventually people figure out that the stock is either worthless, or at the very least, not worth nearly what the snakeoil salesmen would have you believe. Then the bubble bursts, people lose everything, and the timer is reset. While hopefully the programmers managed to dump all their stock to believers prior to it being worthless. It isn't that these people had bad ideas, or products all the time, it is how they are funded, and the valuations and behavior of the stupid financial system. Get big enough and it gathers its own momentum from people just willing it to succeed, but will alone is not enough for the long term as any ponzi scheme will show. Those at the top do make out like bandits, however 95% end up being losers. Then again, probably how all Billionaires are born (unless they literally are born that way...)
Just playing devils advocate (I am sure there is a joke in there somewhere)...
Anyway, as I understand it, evolution is about the selection of traits for survival, This usually involves environment, eating/not getting eaten, and procreation.
It very well could be that Zebra's with their short hair, developed stripes to hide from biting insects, as their survival was significantly impacted enough to warrant the change. While on the insect side of things, perhaps they have enough of a food source that missing out on the Zebra buffet isn't a significant survival issue, and thus never bothered to evolve any eyeballs capable to seeing them for lunch (or perhaps the Zebra evolution isn't all that effective anyway).
What is more interesting to me however, if this explanation is the case, then why didn't Zebra's just evolve longer hair? Then again, I suppose it is hot, so that might not work out so well. Then again not everything has a lot of hair or is striped in those parts either. I am pretty sure evolution isn't really all that exact anyway, which is partially why it takes so damn long to produce changes over generations. I liken it to randomly programming solutions to a problem, some are better than others, but some are pretty good and stick around for quite awhile, or are just good enough, though over time the best solution will get used more often eventually.
Also mixed into the mess is not only physical things like hot/cold, eat/eaten, procreation, but behavior based on those traits. Basically at which point is a stripey Zebra more sexy to another Zebra as that is perceived as better unconsciously. Oh baby, that's nice stripes you got there... I have to think there is also a significant lag time between physical evolution, and behavioral evolution, as the one pretty much has to occur before the other. Perhaps that is the point, if a trait sticks around long enough, it sort of proves itself a bit, which then kicks in the behavior modification, which further reinforces the trait...
Anyway interesting to try and figure it all out, even if only a thought experiment.
Until very recently the US would intentionally degrade the GPS signal to all but military traffic (all the time). Considering the major military actions going on in the Ukraine by Russia one could suppose this is actually the case, particularly if perhaps the Ukraine military also uses the same system... I would not be terribly surprised if this is the case. The US did the same when they invaded Iraq.
Unless the gibberish it was transmitting was: 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42. Then someone needs to press a damn button!
Why is the German ghost talking to you in English?
Personally I can't sit through any of them, or those medium shows, makes me uncomfortable, but not because I am scared or amazed, but because they are so disturbingly bad.
Apple owns the patent for not showing an apple logo in instructional videos, thus in order to not violate the patent and get sued they MUST use an apple logo in their instructional video. It's simple really...
"Then you got to get sent to a slam, where they tell you you'll never see daylight again. You dig up a doctor, and you pay him 20 menthol Kools to do a surgical shine job on your eyeballs."
What a drama queen, all he had to do was take his contacts out...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...
I liked Darmok, it was one that stuck in my brain, and always remember the lines. It was really the only episode that sort of points out universal translator aside it very well could be that aliens being so aliens, it may be next to impossible for real understanding.
However the episode that I perhaps I liked the best was Lower Decks. Main characters play relatively minor roles, and shows the ship from the junior officer perspective. Apart from the corny bartender I thought it was really well done. I also thought it was one of the more poingent and sad episodes. One of the few that actually choked me up a bit.
"...knowing that the aircraft still had some fuel, but that it would have run out before the next automated ping."
Seems pretty straight forward to me... Ran out of fuel over the Ocean.
As to How/Why?
1) Navigational Error: Instruments on wrong course, path that cannot complete given fuel.
2) Pilot Error: Asleep at the wheel so to speak.
3) Terrorists: Remember hearing about another flight that was hijacked, ordered to go someplace, pilots said we don't have the fuel, Terrorists don't believe them."
Ultimately without some evidence, a mystery.
Also "no survivors"? Why because you didn't find any? Did you look? No? Found wreckage? Anyway at this point given how long it has been it is pretty unlikely but still.
Must. Resist urge to stab pencils in my eyes.
Going to surf some cyberspace on the information highway using the interweb with the internet to access some clouds within the Intercloud.
Between media and marketing speak it is getting harder and harder to distinguish between fictional and actual technical terms.
I decided long ago to only use the most ridiculous terms in protest, I get all my bits through a series of tubes on the Intertubes.
Three reasons:
1) They are basically countrymen or close to it, and probably didn't feel like shooting their own.
2) Half your brothers in arms defected to the other side, probably really don't feel like shooting them either.
3) This is the Russian armed forces who have come in strength and prepared, given situation how wise to provoke?
To my mind this is a lot like Canada and Quebec relations.
It would be like Canada deciding Trade options between France and England, where it is likely that Canada might decide to go with England. France with a lot to lose might invade Quebec. Within Quebec there are those that identify with one or the other, but most with France and are French speaking. Quebec has also talked about independence in the past, and also had its own referendum which much of Canada called into question its validity. The Canadian Armed Forces stationed in Quebec might be put in a similar situation. Odds are they are not going to want to fight their brothers in arms.
The difference with Ukraine which would make it even harder to do so, is close physical location with Russian counterparts, in that it is just across the border, not across an entire ocean. Also while Ukraine has a storied history, it was part of the Soviet Union along with Russia in the very recent past (comparatively speaking). I don't think being a coward really enters into it.
Many are probably like "Fsck it, let the politicians figure it the hell out, I'm going home."
Evolution is defined by a species ability to survive and procreate. I am pretty sure the survivability of the Duck would be inversely proportional it proclivity to trying to mate with a crocodile.
I don't know if it is just me or not, but the most fascinating thing would be the design and transport of construction machines. Automated perhaps? Most of the ideas I have read about a moon base involves being under ground. The primary reason being protection from solar radiation (unless they come up with some novel way of protection). That would mean earth moving and mining equipment, which isn't light or particularly delicate. Also because of a lack of weather system, moon dust is much more abrasive than here on Earth apparently, which may play havoc on maintaining any design.
Another method might be water shielding prefab modules. Then again the amount of water required would likely mean the structure would have to be very strong, and probably heavy. It would also require a large source of water, and even with that a method to extract it.
Then again without a local supply of water it would probably be cost prohibitive to truck it over from earth. Then again that is a job I want, Moon Water Trucker!
Anyway Moon base is maybe getting a bit far ahead of ourselves. Probes. Locate water source. Devise robotic autonomous extraction and storage. Then once you have a supply of water, then start talking moon base. However realistically I think all of that is MUCH longer than 4 years away.
I don't think the poster knows what hardware "enthusiasts" really mean. No one is looking forward to the "e" EXTREME series CPU. Perhaps some people with more money than brains. Enthusiasts want CHEAP hardware that they can then fiddle with to gain big results. Haswell while a decent CPU only really offered better power efficiency and a few more instruction sets that might be potentially useful in a few years. Not exactly a ringing endorsement.
This sort of thing costs $1000+ dollars, so unless you are a rich enthusiast and money is no object, then quite pointless.
To use the Slashdot car analogy, it is comparing a car enthusiast, and Honda creating a race car. The race car costs 5$ million, and unless you are obscenely rich, you aren't going to buy one to run to the grocery store. You might however buy that generation of retail car that uses some of the technology being shown off in the race car, It is that, a showcase of technology, not a reasonable thing, just like the $1000+ dollar video cards, they want to be able to say "see, there we are the best, check this out, now buy our other more reasonably priced chips...". Which if you think about it, means you should probably release the extreme version first dummies.
The primary reason I don't believe in capital punishment, is that the legal system is far from infallible, and it is much easier to reintegrate into society after many years of incarceration than it is to reattach a head.
However yes, it is much the same, only you are saying, we would execute you, but we occasionally make mistakes, so just in case we will keep you around in the off chance we did. Some might say that life imprisonment is more expensive, however I believe the US system has shown that this isn't really the case.
There has been more than a couple of cases where a prisoner doing life has been exonerated. Also this would usually immediately involve a civil case, that would likely award the person a lot of money, which might not give back the years, but might make integration back into society a bit easier.
Duh...
I harden all my electronics against electromagnetic radiation using tinfoil!
For extra sensitive systems I use the heavy duty stuff,,, It also works better in the BBQ!
"Have you been vaccinated for the following..."
"No, because of some crazy reason..."
"Admission to Country Denied, please put your clothing into the fire receptacle on your way out."
When the plague zombies eventually die out, a new and fertile land will be ready for colonists...
I agree. Why not just torture them to death and be done with it. You are on no higher moral ground for doing it virtually using drugs.
In the end, it comes down to what a society feels is important to do about crime and "justice".
1) Punishment
2) Rehab
3) Isolation
The article seems to say that for odious crimes, only punishment is the answer. I think most enlightened societies would probably agree, that the purpose is to keep criminals isolated from the rest of society until such a time as they can be re-integrated back into society as a productive member. In some rare cases, where they crime is so odious, it might be best for society as a whole to keep them isolated from society for the rest of their life.