Give me a break. Using the language of your competition (especially stupid versioning "standards" and marketing speak) is a surefire way to tell the world that you're the one playing catch-up.
Numbers will do just fine, as they always have. Extra decimal places for updates (Service packs... ha!) will do just fine, as they always have.
Use letters instead of numbers if you feel the need to be hip. Roman numerals have already been done of course. Try greek to appeal to the beer drinking college crowd. Use the phonetic alphabet for retro nerds.
UserLinux Foxtrot.Bravo
Mmhmm. Nice and stupid. Should go over well with the tools in marketing.
First of all, simply recieving a message from an alien race would be an accomplishment for SETI. Decoding it would, of course, be important, but much is still learned without doing so.
Second, it is assumed that at the power levels we're currently able to pick up, any transmissions we recieve will be deliberate broadcasts. When communicating with somebody foreign to you, you don't start writing out questions and requests in your own language do you? No. You draw pictures. You use something more universal. Hopefully any aliens would do the same, constructing a message that is made to be deciphered easily, perhaps getting gradually more involved as we are taught their language and whatnot.
So no, SETI is no more pointless now than it was before. You can certainly tell if you've found intelligence without deciphering a message, and hopefully you can decipher a deliberately sent message without much intelligence.
> Web Designer 1: "As well as include more popup and banner ads, too!"
yeah. because every web designer out there jumps for joy and wets his/herself out of sheer excitement over the opportunity to work beautiful banner ads into their designs. if only every web site had the fine aesthetics and usability of slashdot (quick! tell me how to search the archives!), we'd all be saved from those stupid designers trying to put some "thought" into the visuals and structure of web sites.
although this sounds quite cool i don't see how this would work. when i picture what you're suggesting all i can think of is those "ecosystem fishbowls"....totally closed off shrimp in a bowl with a weed. it's not a closed system by any means though, the plant dies without a bit of sunlight, the same would be true for what you're suggesting i think. sure you can schlep off some energy from the bacteria, but that's probably taking heat energy away from the system, which'll have to be replaced by something....sunlight or whatnot. so now you have an inefficient solar panel basically. am i missing something?
everybody is touting accessibility to the information on your site, i'm pretty sure you have to go one step further on government sites and make them universally accessible. this means making it so it works reasonably well for blind folks who are surfing through some sort of vocalizer or colorblind folks who can't see your spiffy multicolored buttons or whatnot. More info here:
This is a page for the New York State Goverment, but they mention federal regulations they're supposed to follow and have some good links on how to design with those who are handicapped in mind.
For some further reading, I'd recommend "The Case for Mars" by Robert Zubrin. Perhaps some of you have read it already. In it, Zubrin explains his plan on how to get directly to mars, now. All using technologies we currently have, skipping the space station, skipping the moon. Seems like a pretty solid plan to me, although I'm just a dumb art student...so I could be wrong =-) Check it out though, he talks a little about history, what other peoples plans are (the battleship galactia approach) and why his is better, then goes into great detail about what he wants to do and what he's been working on to prove it'll work. Very intersting stuff.
Slashdot Mirror
UserLinux 2004?! Service packs?!
Give me a break. Using the language of your competition (especially stupid versioning "standards" and marketing speak) is a surefire way to tell the world that you're the one playing catch-up.
Numbers will do just fine, as they always have. Extra decimal places for updates (Service packs... ha!) will do just fine, as they always have.
Use letters instead of numbers if you feel the need to be hip. Roman numerals have already been done of course. Try greek to appeal to the beer drinking college crowd. Use the phonetic alphabet for retro nerds.
UserLinux Foxtrot.Bravo
Mmhmm. Nice and stupid. Should go over well with the tools in marketing.
Second, it is assumed that at the power levels we're currently able to pick up, any transmissions we recieve will be deliberate broadcasts. When communicating with somebody foreign to you, you don't start writing out questions and requests in your own language do you? No. You draw pictures. You use something more universal. Hopefully any aliens would do the same, constructing a message that is made to be deciphered easily, perhaps getting gradually more involved as we are taught their language and whatnot.
So no, SETI is no more pointless now than it was before. You can certainly tell if you've found intelligence without deciphering a message, and hopefully you can decipher a deliberately sent message without much intelligence.
> Web Designer 1: "As well as include more popup and banner ads, too!"
yeah. because every web designer out there jumps for joy and wets his/herself out of sheer excitement over the opportunity to work beautiful banner ads into their designs. if only every web site had the fine aesthetics and usability of slashdot (quick! tell me how to search the archives!), we'd all be saved from those stupid designers trying to put some "thought" into the visuals and structure of web sites.
although this sounds quite cool i don't see how this would work. when i picture what you're suggesting all i can think of is those "ecosystem fishbowls"....totally closed off shrimp in a bowl with a weed. it's not a closed system by any means though, the plant dies without a bit of sunlight, the same would be true for what you're suggesting i think. sure you can schlep off some energy from the bacteria, but that's probably taking heat energy away from the system, which'll have to be replaced by something....sunlight or whatnot. so now you have an inefficient solar panel basically. am i missing something?
everybody is touting accessibility to the information on your site, i'm pretty sure you have to go one step further on government sites and make them universally accessible. this means making it so it works reasonably well for blind folks who are surfing through some sort of vocalizer or colorblind folks who can't see your spiffy multicolored buttons or whatnot. More info here:
u irements.html
http://seddmznt.nysed.gov/cio/access/statutoryreq
This is a page for the New York State Goverment, but they mention federal regulations they're supposed to follow and have some good links on how to design with those who are handicapped in mind.
to be fair nowhere in
Alastair Reynolds is one of the breed of science fiction writers who is also a professional scientist.
is there any mention of new. why does it seem people are so eager to jump all over anybody who posts an article/story?
For some further reading, I'd recommend "The Case for Mars" by Robert Zubrin. Perhaps some of you have read it already. In it, Zubrin explains his plan on how to get directly to mars, now. All using technologies we currently have, skipping the space station, skipping the moon. Seems like a pretty solid plan to me, although I'm just a dumb art student...so I could be wrong =-) Check it out though, he talks a little about history, what other peoples plans are (the battleship galactia approach) and why his is better, then goes into great detail about what he wants to do and what he's been working on to prove it'll work. Very intersting stuff.