You study the absorption spectra of the light reflected from the planet, AFAIK.
If certain frequencies of light are missing, then you know a certain chemical is present in the atmosphere as it has absorbed that frequency of light. These show up as dark lines on the spectrum of emitted light called Fraunhofer lines.
All you need to do is to check for the right levels of oxygen, nitrogen and other atmospheric gases and you have good evidence of a planet that might be able to support life as we know it.
When I saw the thing featured on the BBC website, I was tempted. But there's no way in hell I'm going to buy a product that will make me use some lame format such as Atrac3, especially if I need to run the conversion software on Windows, where presumably it's going to be all 'user friendly', and therefore a nightmare to use. I've copied 100's of my CDs to my hardrive, and I've not got the patience to convert them all to another format. Although it's far from perfect, MP3 is the universal standard of music encoding, so excluding the posibility of using it is commercial suicide.
There has to be some twisted logic behind this move, either an attempt to make Atrac the format of choice for digital music storage (won't ever happen) or to rigidly enforce DRM, which will just piss everyone off, especially/. types, who are also presumably early adopters of new gadgets such as this.
Is it because there is no main governing body overseeing the net ?
IMHO, the lack of a governing body (out side of the agreements made on protocols, etc.) is one of the great strengths of the internet. Problems such as this are one of the downsides to the libertarian situation that exists, but it's small potatoes compared to the great benefits to be gained.
Nah - I wasn't trolling. All that information's in the link I posted. It seems as if they try to keep as objective as possible in their reporting, and Christianity doesn't seem to get a mention, so it doesn't matter who's writing the thing. It could be written by the Church of Satan for all it matters.
Aren't these people warned in the EULA before they install?
One nasty problem with this is the fact that often by the time you get to a page with a EULA, the damn site's installing spyware - and the EULA's something along the lines of "by looking at this page, you agree to be infested".
Yeah, there's a EULA, but it's effectively worthless, and is just a get-out-of-trouble clause for the malware supplier...
The CSM is essentially secular. See the 'about us' pages. Seems that the naming of the CSM was a rather unpopular move by the paper's creator, Mary Baker Eddy - the rest of the staff didn't seem to want to call it that, since it's not really Christian at all...
Here in the UK, we a have huge number of cameras all over the country in public places.
To me it seems that they're viewed as a (cheap) replacement for policemen out on the streets.
I remember when I went to NY a few years ago - it seemed to be just the opposite, lots of police and very few cameras. I have to say, it felt much safer.
Good point. Where I work, we are told never to install any software, and also prevented from playing around with may of the PC's settings. I presume many workplaces are the same. This has to be done to prevent all the viruses and other malware from damaging some very important information. And also to protect the computer network from something far more dangerous - stupid users. There'll always be a need for a computer admin department in any average size business simply to keep the place running, since a system won't look after itself, especially if you let people near it.
Turning spam into songs has already been done, and done brilliantly. Check out Spam Radio for some very nice ambient/electronica with a dash of spam.
If you like the music on the site, which personally I love, then check out Monotonik Records who've done the music for them, and have tonnes of free MP3s to download.
I get spam sent to an email address that I've never given out. I guess they've just randomly generated my address and keep sending me crap - it's all from the same 5 or 6 people.
"I think when you're looking for opportunities to stand out, the idea of someone who has got a T-shirt that's a monitor playing movie trailers is really cool," said Jeffrey Godsick, executive vp marketing at 20th Century Fox.
You're clearly biased. It's not cool. It's dorky. Really dorky.
"We were presented the technology a few weeks ago and instantly thought it would be great for a movie promotion opportunity.... People at E3 stopped to watch the trailers because it's just so unique.
I'm SURE that's why they were watching the trailers, and not just because, according to this bit:
The two women who wore the video T-shirts as they walked around E3 drew crowds and TV news crews on hand to cover the gaming conference at the Los Angeles Convention Center.
Two women had the trailers playing on their chests... "Wow! Check out those, er, robots!"
This is my opinion: there are many factors to what defines 'religion'. The western concept of a creator god is just one of them. Unless you have some kind of organised atheist preists, atheist rituals, atheist holy scriptures, atheist churches, atheist holy days etc. then I doubt you've got an atheist religion on your hands. In the same way, belief in a god without all the extra trimmings is not going to make someone a member of a religion, such as deists.
I'd like to ask - are you a Buddhist, or is this just something you've just decided?
The only thing that seemingly prevents the classification of Buddhism as a religion is the lack of a creator God. This is not sufficient reason, given the presence of devotion, rituals, an ethical system, scriptures, a monastic system, and the presence of 'supernatural' elements.
With this kind of logic, Taoism and Jainism are also not religions.
Well gee - I guess I was lied to by all the Buddhist writings I've read, my Lama and all the other teachers that I've had who say otherwise.
Buddhism basically has all the definitions given there, apart from the idea of the universe being created at one point in the past by an all poweful God. It should be noted that sutras such as the Avatamsaka and the Amitabha sutra explain that world systems can be deliberately created by Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.
It would be catastrophic only for Islam, Christianity and possibly Judaism.
It wouldn't pose any problems for most of the other ones. Buddhism and Hinduism clearly posit the existence of other planets with intellegent life. According to them, the universe is full of life.
And if they don't share our religions then it doesn'y mean they're right or wrong - it simply means they haven't found the Tao, or had a Buddha recently or whatever the religion says.
I'm fascinated by UFOs - and by UFOs I don't mean alien spaceships. UFO != BEM
There are plenty of non-faked photos and radar traces made by honest people of weird things in the sky. They've not been able to identify them, and they appear to be some kind of flying object - so UFOs are certainly real.
The question of course is what could be behind thes photos and sightings. Since most scientists wouldn't touch the subject with a bargepole due to the public's perception of the subject, it left for the kooks to get their grubby paws on.
I'll explain (ie wildly conjecture;) ) a bit more...
If the brain is a chemical system and acts like some kind of aerial, then the altering of the functioning of the aerial will alter the interaction between the body and the mind.
The 'self' is simply a combination of the property of bare conscious awareness, a property picked up by brain-aerial and the chemical and physical state of the body. It's this self which is our everyday experience, and which is formed at the point of intersection/reaction between the physical and the mental, which the brain is responsible for coagulating together.
In this, I define consciouness not as the feeling 'I'm horny' but as the awareness of the mental object horniness.
Slashdot Mirror
It's called a 'window'.
If certain frequencies of light are missing, then you know a certain chemical is present in the atmosphere as it has absorbed that frequency of light. These show up as dark lines on the spectrum of emitted light called Fraunhofer lines.
All you need to do is to check for the right levels of oxygen, nitrogen and other atmospheric gases and you have good evidence of a planet that might be able to support life as we know it.
There has to be some twisted logic behind this move, either an attempt to make Atrac the format of choice for digital music storage (won't ever happen) or to rigidly enforce DRM, which will just piss everyone off, especially /. types, who are also presumably early adopters of new gadgets such as this.
Man, those are BIG tires...
IMHO, the lack of a governing body (out side of the agreements made on protocols, etc.) is one of the great strengths of the internet. Problems such as this are one of the downsides to the libertarian situation that exists, but it's small potatoes compared to the great benefits to be gained.
Nah - I wasn't trolling. All that information's in the link I posted. It seems as if they try to keep as objective as possible in their reporting, and Christianity doesn't seem to get a mention, so it doesn't matter who's writing the thing. It could be written by the Church of Satan for all it matters.
One nasty problem with this is the fact that often by the time you get to a page with a EULA, the damn site's installing spyware - and the EULA's something along the lines of "by looking at this page, you agree to be infested".
Yeah, there's a EULA, but it's effectively worthless, and is just a get-out-of-trouble clause for the malware supplier...
The CSM is essentially secular. See the 'about us' pages. Seems that the naming of the CSM was a rather unpopular move by the paper's creator, Mary Baker Eddy - the rest of the staff didn't seem to want to call it that, since it's not really Christian at all...
Check out this on theEPR paradox.
"Who are the f**king Gideons? Ever met one? No. Ever seen one? No. What are they? Ninjas? Where are they from? Gidea?"
To me it seems that they're viewed as a (cheap) replacement for policemen out on the streets.
I remember when I went to NY a few years ago - it seemed to be just the opposite, lots of police and very few cameras. I have to say, it felt much safer.
Good point. Where I work, we are told never to install any software, and also prevented from playing around with may of the PC's settings. I presume many workplaces are the same. This has to be done to prevent all the viruses and other malware from damaging some very important information. And also to protect the computer network from something far more dangerous - stupid users. There'll always be a need for a computer admin department in any average size business simply to keep the place running, since a system won't look after itself, especially if you let people near it.
Coming soon to a Slashdot near you: "Batboy confirms he created Linux"
If you like the music on the site, which personally I love, then check out Monotonik Records who've done the music for them, and have tonnes of free MP3s to download.
I get spam sent to an email address that I've never given out. I guess they've just randomly generated my address and keep sending me crap - it's all from the same 5 or 6 people.
You're clearly biased. It's not cool. It's dorky. Really dorky.
"We were presented the technology a few weeks ago and instantly thought it would be great for a movie promotion opportunity. ... People at E3 stopped to watch the trailers because it's just so unique.
I'm SURE that's why they were watching the trailers, and not just because, according to this bit:
The two women who wore the video T-shirts as they walked around E3 drew crowds and TV news crews on hand to cover the gaming conference at the Los Angeles Convention Center.
Two women had the trailers playing on their chests... "Wow! Check out those, er, robots!"
This is my opinion: there are many factors to what defines 'religion'. The western concept of a creator god is just one of them. Unless you have some kind of organised atheist preists, atheist rituals, atheist holy scriptures, atheist churches, atheist holy days etc. then I doubt you've got an atheist religion on your hands. In the same way, belief in a god without all the extra trimmings is not going to make someone a member of a religion, such as deists.
The only thing that seemingly prevents the classification of Buddhism as a religion is the lack of a creator God. This is not sufficient reason, given the presence of devotion, rituals, an ethical system, scriptures, a monastic system, and the presence of 'supernatural' elements.
With this kind of logic, Taoism and Jainism are also not religions.
Buddhism basically has all the definitions given there, apart from the idea of the universe being created at one point in the past by an all poweful God. It should be noted that sutras such as the Avatamsaka and the Amitabha sutra explain that world systems can be deliberately created by Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.
Like I said, Buddhism's a religion. Period.
It wouldn't pose any problems for most of the other ones. Buddhism and Hinduism clearly posit the existence of other planets with intellegent life. According to them, the universe is full of life.
And if they don't share our religions then it doesn'y mean they're right or wrong - it simply means they haven't found the Tao, or had a Buddha recently or whatever the religion says.
I'm a Buddhist, and I'm sorry - but Buddhism is a religion. Period.
There are plenty of non-faked photos and radar traces made by honest people of weird things in the sky. They've not been able to identify them, and they appear to be some kind of flying object - so UFOs are certainly real.
The question of course is what could be behind thes photos and sightings. Since most scientists wouldn't touch the subject with a bargepole due to the public's perception of the subject, it left for the kooks to get their grubby paws on.
Why, yes I do. That's my definition of a good cup o' coffee right there. How else are you meant to be able to wake up and face the day?
If the brain is a chemical system and acts like some kind of aerial, then the altering of the functioning of the aerial will alter the interaction between the body and the mind.
The 'self' is simply a combination of the property of bare conscious awareness, a property picked up by brain-aerial and the chemical and physical state of the body. It's this self which is our everyday experience, and which is formed at the point of intersection/reaction between the physical and the mental, which the brain is responsible for coagulating together.
In this, I define consciouness not as the feeling 'I'm horny' but as the awareness of the mental object horniness.
Not sure what you mean by that.
Anyway - scientific studues into meditation & Buddhist practice:
Meditation 'good for brain'
Monks help scientists study brain
Buddhists 'really are happier'