Okay, so on the exoplanets we know about so far life that looks like us appears to be pretty unlikely.
Y'know what? If the planet can support liquid H2O, my money is on life appearing there all by itself. There, I said it - I'm a believer in the theory of Spontaneous Generation.
As for Drake - even he knew he was whistling in the dark. He just grabbed numbers out of the sky ("if one in ten thousand stars has planets . . . if one in one thousand of these planets is a suitably sized rocky planet . . . if . . . ). I suspect he was more interested in elucidating the list of things to consider and showing how finite those considerations were against a Universe the size of our Universe. He was not trying to realistically predict the odds, he was more interested in making people understand the question.
If I'm wrong, Drake was definitely whistling in the dark. He simply didn't have the tools to make a better prediction. Incidentally, neither do we (yet).
So the 10% or so that are actually working will get light half the time. Right.
Has everybody forgotten what the lifespan of your average photovoltaic cell is? They'll burn out faster than we can replace them - I mean, that's a lot of solar cells, guys. I seriously doubt that Alpha can keep up with just the replacements, let alone completing the original design.
Hey, I'll go. You keep breathin' the air here 'til that rock/supervolcano/solar extinction event hits. We'll go bring Truth, Justice and the American Way to some nice stable planet circling a red dwarf somewhere. It's only a temporary solution to that whole "the sun will burn out eventually" thing, but I'll take it. Send us a postcard when that yellow star you're orbiting is burning out - we'll be happy to sell you some rocket fuel and help y'all get outta Dodge!
Unless you'd rather round up all the Dems and send them hurtling into deep space?
Rather than killing my phone, why not track the sucker so I can get it back? Leave "remote lock" and "remote kill" between me and my security provider (AVG anyone?).
I couldn't determine (maybe I read too fast, missed it) . . . is this an exploit against those models as shipped, or is this an exploit against Linksys routers which have been flashed to run a more current version of DD-WRT? I suspect the former, but I can't confirm that.
If it's the former, then a software fix (flash to latest DD-WRT) is already available for those technically competent to implement it. If the latter . . . oi vey.
Or the rest of us can stick with Classic and filter out the 'fuck beta' meme until you fucktards stop spamming the board.
BTW, I like the new look. It looks a lot like their mobile browser page. I can't wait until the mentally challenged stop posting 'fuck beta' and go back to beating their wives and molesting their kids.
-1 Flamebait.
Oh, well - Downmod me all you like. The new Beta will prevent your puerile attempts at censorship. Mwa-ha-ha-ha...
I think novelists and authors who publish their works as a professional act deserve some degree of protection for their works. I'll admit I'm torn between the "renewable every seven years" idea and the "lifetime of the author" idea. I'm a lot foggier on derivative works. If someone writes and produces a fantastic Star Trek spinoff, do Roddenberry/Desilu/Paramout/... have a right to prevent it? How about if it's about Federation civilians, you won't even see Starships or Starbases - not even a Starfleet Officer in sight. What if my show's about personal drama and never even gets of the surface of Tau Ceti 2? I promise, no phasers or photon torpedoes.
So when does software become comparable to a novel? What criteria should we appropriately apply (hint: it isn't "it's all free")? Margaret Mitchell et. al. deserve better than that, don't you think? These rights aren't imaginary - they're tied to real money (and I mean REAL money). If I sequelize the best seller from this week's NYT list very few people would argue that the original author has no right to sue me. If I sequelize The Martian Chronicles, I doubt that Mr. Bradbury's interests will come after me (after all this time, they shouldn't. I doubt they would, although their laughter at my idiocy might be amusing). If I sequelize Mario Bros. (hey, pick just about any side-scrolling shooter, really), should Nintendo have a right to bust my chops, or should they just accept that they've made all the money they deserve from the Mario franchise and let me make a fool of myself? If I make money at it (i.e., people read Chronicles II or buy Luigi's Plumbing), should Nintendo be allowed to change their mind and say "oh, that's ours. Too bad, so sad, you lose."?
That's only a little of the muck we collectively need to strain through. Those were fairly trivial examples. There are lots of more complicated examples to be contrived, many of which are actually really happening right now.
Never had it. Never will. My G*d, I'm a Seven-Up (tm) commercial!
Somebody help me - here comes the Doctor Pepper (tm)/Snapple(tm) group to get me. If I try to flee to Europe, Pepsico (tm) will catch me. I'm Doom (C)'ed!
There are no ground-facing windows to the best of my knowledge, and on the flight deck it's practically impossible to see much below the aircraft (at least from the Pilot's seat).
Perhaps someone from one of the airlines or better still the FAA could demonstrate just how disruptive a laser pointer is to flight operations? At 30,000 feet, I suspect that 2-3mm beam will already be scattered to several feet (with an attendant loss of intensity). On takeoff or final approach somebody might be able to paint the flight deck windows with a laser, but that puts yon numbskull in a very specific place (trespassing on airport property?), subject to monitoring and arrest.
Question - we are detecting all of these laser strikes on commercial aircraft. Have we detected any instances where it has actually posed a significant obstacle to safe flight operations? Not the "oh the red flash distracted me for an instant, we could have crashed!" hysteria, but some real "I was blinded for several seconds requiring the co-pilot to assume command briefly". I'm going to be honest - in my passenger car, those red flashing lights in the rearview mirror really mess with my ability to drive; but it's more than a momentary flash. With a lack of visible feedback, how many people can continuously paint the windshield of a jumbo jet in flight for more than a fraction of a second?
Or the rest of us can stick with Classic and filter out the 'fuck beta' meme until you fucktards stop spamming the board.
BTW, I like the new look. It looks a lot like their mobile browser page. I can't wait until the mentally challenged stop posting 'fuck beta' and go back to beating their wives and molesting their kids.
First, remember that this is essentially where the world wide web of internetworked computers began. The words 'unintended consequences' come screaming to mind . . . (although I have to admit - I love those wicked pipes!)
Second - we (common netizens) may welcome the sort of information availability DARPA is seeking - sort of like the scifi future where you just ask the nearest terminal whatever you want to know and magically get the answer you need - but there are lots of bad people still running around on this planet (scamsters, governments, jilted ex-lovers, religious extremists, etc.). The problem isn't the technology, the problem is our ability to handle it.
I very much suspect DARPA may be onto something. I wonder if it will be as beneficial as the WWW has been.
Jeopardy is all about intellectual competition (and money, and marketing, and Hollywierd...). So one player used his academic understanding of the science known as game theory and applied it to this game, and the viewers are unhappy? I guess the player is smarter than the viewers - hardly surprising, I guess.
Um, dude(tte) - so far, the Internet (despite being a DARPA technology in essence) is a private, quasi-corporate entity. If the U. S. Government had retained all rights to the networking and software technologies they developed, they would have an incredibly robust command and control mechanism they could regulate as they saw fit, because it would be U. S. military property, and classified. But it didn't happen that way...
The world's governments theoretically should all have some measure of a say in how the Internet is managed. Theoretically. Which means the U. S. Government is not merely permitted but obliged to create and implement policies to manage certain aspects of internet communication. Unfortunately, that puts the primary question posed on this thread dead-center in a very grey area. Personally, I think the U. S. Government should take back the entire internet in the United States as the only possible way to manage it in a single coherent, fair way. Personal internetwork access should be a public utility or better still, a personal entitlement. I might even feel better about my tax dollars if I got something like personal connectivity to go with those smooth roads and that wonderful standing army we have and all that other infrastructural junk. Can't be filtered and I don't have to even worry about specifying why - it's a public utility. Period. No favorites. Corruption and graft opportunities, but we're used to that by now from our political systems, yes?
Okay - but if you point that out to me and I accept the accuracy of the statement, I still assert that overall I'm going to do better if I strive for wealth than if I strive for minimal economic stability along with everyone else. Socialism is great with small, like-minded groups; once a socialist entity grows beyond that point, the whole socialist system to show its flaws pretty quickly. No reward (or at best, minimal reward) for excellence combined with no penalty for failure to perform yields a society doomed to failure as its constituents do what humans and electrons do and find the natural path of least resistance.
Yes, it sucks that the best system going is an adversarial one - but it does keep us on our toes.
So you'll be pleading guilty as charged on one count of disseminating false information? You appear to be demonstrating a fundamental misunderstanding of both the intended function of QoS/traffic shaping/traffic throttling as well as the related concept of 'Net Neutrality'. It's not whether my opinion posted on some blog somewhere is being censored, as I can certainly express my opinion somewhere that's not being throttled. No, the problem is that when Facebook decides that the competition over at Visagetome is getting a lot of traffic, they'll go quietly to MyISP and pay $$$ to ensure that Visagetome gets slowed to a crawl. No freedom of speech issues here, as I'm perfectly free to post my opinion on Facebook where it can be read and marvelled at by millions. Facebook wins, 'cuz Visagetome went broke trying to figure out why they weren't getting any hits. NSA wins, 'cuz they no longer have to keep breaking into Visagetome, just Facebook. MyISP wins, either 'cuz Facebook paid 'em off, Visagetome paid 'em off, or they hit me with their special $189.00/month UNFILTERED network access (only $100 more and I can get speeds higher than 1Mbps!).
Did I mention that unless MyISP gets me straight to the backbone, they'll have to deal with TheirISP to be sure they don't get throttled there - either by paying them off, or having Visagetome pay them off, or . . .
It all suddenly makes sense. Ignore the partisan political crap. It's all about not slowing down the data streams the NSA requires to keep us confi... er, safe.
Slashdot Mirror
Y'know what? If the planet can support liquid H2O, my money is on life appearing there all by itself. There, I said it - I'm a believer in the theory of Spontaneous Generation.
As for Drake - even he knew he was whistling in the dark. He just grabbed numbers out of the sky ("if one in ten thousand stars has planets . . . if one in one thousand of these planets is a suitably sized rocky planet . . . if . . . ). I suspect he was more interested in elucidating the list of things to consider and showing how finite those considerations were against a Universe the size of our Universe. He was not trying to realistically predict the odds, he was more interested in making people understand the question.
If I'm wrong, Drake was definitely whistling in the dark. He simply didn't have the tools to make a better prediction. Incidentally, neither do we (yet).
Has everybody forgotten what the lifespan of your average photovoltaic cell is? They'll burn out faster than we can replace them - I mean, that's a lot of solar cells, guys. I seriously doubt that Alpha can keep up with just the replacements, let alone completing the original design.
"There is no dark side of the moon. Really. Actually, it's all dark."
Just log out.
Unless you'd rather round up all the Dems and send them hurtling into deep space?
Rather than killing my phone, why not track the sucker so I can get it back? Leave "remote lock" and "remote kill" between me and my security provider (AVG anyone?).
If it's the former, then a software fix (flash to latest DD-WRT) is already available for those technically competent to implement it. If the latter . . . oi vey.
Somebody mod this person up!
Or the rest of us can stick with Classic and filter out the 'fuck beta' meme until you fucktards stop spamming the board.
BTW, I like the new look. It looks a lot like their mobile browser page. I can't wait until the mentally challenged stop posting 'fuck beta' and go back to beating their wives and molesting their kids.
-1 Flamebait.
Oh, well - Downmod me all you like. The new Beta will prevent your puerile attempts at censorship. Mwa-ha-ha-ha...
So when does software become comparable to a novel? What criteria should we appropriately apply (hint: it isn't "it's all free")? Margaret Mitchell et. al. deserve better than that, don't you think? These rights aren't imaginary - they're tied to real money (and I mean REAL money). If I sequelize the best seller from this week's NYT list very few people would argue that the original author has no right to sue me. If I sequelize The Martian Chronicles, I doubt that Mr. Bradbury's interests will come after me (after all this time, they shouldn't. I doubt they would, although their laughter at my idiocy might be amusing). If I sequelize Mario Bros. (hey, pick just about any side-scrolling shooter, really), should Nintendo have a right to bust my chops, or should they just accept that they've made all the money they deserve from the Mario franchise and let me make a fool of myself? If I make money at it (i.e., people read Chronicles II or buy Luigi's Plumbing), should Nintendo be allowed to change their mind and say "oh, that's ours. Too bad, so sad, you lose."?
That's only a little of the muck we collectively need to strain through. Those were fairly trivial examples. There are lots of more complicated examples to be contrived, many of which are actually really happening right now.
Somebody help me - here comes the Doctor Pepper (tm)/Snapple(tm) group to get me. If I try to flee to Europe, Pepsico (tm) will catch me. I'm Doom (C)'ed!
Oh, crap - here comes Id (tm) Software.
(Drone operator) yells "I see light." and deploys a Hellfire guided missile to ride the laser beam down to target.
Fade out and roll closing credits.
Perhaps someone from one of the airlines or better still the FAA could demonstrate just how disruptive a laser pointer is to flight operations? At 30,000 feet, I suspect that 2-3mm beam will already be scattered to several feet (with an attendant loss of intensity). On takeoff or final approach somebody might be able to paint the flight deck windows with a laser, but that puts yon numbskull in a very specific place (trespassing on airport property?), subject to monitoring and arrest.
Question - we are detecting all of these laser strikes on commercial aircraft. Have we detected any instances where it has actually posed a significant obstacle to safe flight operations? Not the "oh the red flash distracted me for an instant, we could have crashed!" hysteria, but some real "I was blinded for several seconds requiring the co-pilot to assume command briefly". I'm going to be honest - in my passenger car, those red flashing lights in the rearview mirror really mess with my ability to drive; but it's more than a momentary flash. With a lack of visible feedback, how many people can continuously paint the windshield of a jumbo jet in flight for more than a fraction of a second?
BTW, I like the new look. It looks a lot like their mobile browser page. I can't wait until the mentally challenged stop posting 'fuck beta' and go back to beating their wives and molesting their kids.
Second - we (common netizens) may welcome the sort of information availability DARPA is seeking - sort of like the scifi future where you just ask the nearest terminal whatever you want to know and magically get the answer you need - but there are lots of bad people still running around on this planet (scamsters, governments, jilted ex-lovers, religious extremists, etc.). The problem isn't the technology, the problem is our ability to handle it.
I very much suspect DARPA may be onto something. I wonder if it will be as beneficial as the WWW has been.
Fixed that for ya.
And that's different from now . . . how?
. . . oh, wait. Disappear in a controlled, triggerable manner . . . Never mind, Bill.
Jeopardy is all about intellectual competition (and money, and marketing, and Hollywierd...). So one player used his academic understanding of the science known as game theory and applied it to this game, and the viewers are unhappy? I guess the player is smarter than the viewers - hardly surprising, I guess.
The world's governments theoretically should all have some measure of a say in how the Internet is managed. Theoretically. Which means the U. S. Government is not merely permitted but obliged to create and implement policies to manage certain aspects of internet communication. Unfortunately, that puts the primary question posed on this thread dead-center in a very grey area. Personally, I think the U. S. Government should take back the entire internet in the United States as the only possible way to manage it in a single coherent, fair way. Personal internetwork access should be a public utility or better still, a personal entitlement. I might even feel better about my tax dollars if I got something like personal connectivity to go with those smooth roads and that wonderful standing army we have and all that other infrastructural junk. Can't be filtered and I don't have to even worry about specifying why - it's a public utility. Period. No favorites. Corruption and graft opportunities, but we're used to that by now from our political systems, yes?
Yes, it sucks that the best system going is an adversarial one - but it does keep us on our toes.
Did I mention that unless MyISP gets me straight to the backbone, they'll have to deal with TheirISP to be sure they don't get throttled there - either by paying them off, or having Visagetome pay them off, or . . .
It all suddenly makes sense. Ignore the partisan political crap. It's all about not slowing down the data streams the NSA requires to keep us confi... er, safe.
Well . . . not just one corporation . . .
If you're old and you're a Democrat, you have no brain.
Wanna be the Tin Man or the Scarecrow? Or you could be a Libertarian (Cowardly Lion?). Sorry, you ain't in Kansas anymore, Toto.