(If they were friendly, they'd have been wiped out already by another race that is not.)
As a side note, it will be anyone's guess where our civilization would belong to in case of an encounter, to the friendly ones or, rather, to the "wipe 'em out" category...
But there is a hypothetical case where everything we need can be made by robots, even the robots. In that case we would need a new economic system to distribute wealth.
Agreed, full-heartedly. In addition to this, some adjustments to the legal system will be necessary as well.
As the French writer Anatole France put it in 1894, in a pretty cynical way: "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."
The alternative to these adjustments (in fact, a lot more than just that, of course), to quote from a posting above, by Mr. Tom Guycot:
The only other option is the one we're currently going down, which is that of some kind of sci fi dystopian corporate future with massive slums/even greater prison population (maybe they'll just start merging them)
But that thing looks like the Staten Island Ferry. A nice one, but a ferry none the less.
I just went to Google, typed in yachts and hit image. There were some truly beautiful boats; sail and powered. Steve Jobs was NO boat designer.
Philippe Starck isn't, either.
The stern of the vessel has obviously been designed with later alternative purpose use in mind.
So she might end up as a luxury ferry boat delivering services exclusively for owners of eight and twelve cylinder cars (Bugattis, Porsches, Bentleys, Lamborghinis, you name it) between some of the most fashionable sea side locations of the world, such as Hyannis Port and Biarritz were in their days.
Maybe one of the princes in the Persian Gulf area wants to run a ferry between Dubai and Kuwait, who knows? Just cut a wide enough opening into the stern of the hull, Philippe Starck will again be pleased to help with the aestetics, I am sure.
For a number of scientific considerations, one can treat elementary particles (like the electron) as point-like objects, and legitimately so.
But the Planck length is a unit that is about 18 magnitudes (i.e., 18 powers of 10) smaller than anything one might define as the "size" of an electron.
If you imagine a ruler with a dozen Planck lenghts as units printed on it instead of inches, then in comparison an electron would be an enormous object, much bigger than the size of a planet.
"Representative Ben Wade stated that evolution is just a theory"
Just another politician who doesn't know anything about the essential terms and methodologies science is supposed to be based on.
This would still not be anything of a big deal - if these people just could keep themselves away from talking publicly about science and, even more important, about science education as part of their political agenda.
P.S. Whenever I hear this "... is just a theory" statement, in the first moment I should like to learn an example for something that is *not* "just a theory" according to people like Mr. Wade and others of his kind. But then, thinking again, I am not sure if I really want that at all. It might perfectly well turn out to be a ridiculous, boring experience, along the lines of "heavens", "hell", "eternal punishment" etc...
I read another possible answer to the "Why Tennessee?" question.
That article back then said, that, unlike most states in the U.S., Tennessee doesn't require a patient to be a resident of the state in order to be entered to the recipients' list.
It was required that when a trasplant organ was available and person X was on top of the list, this person should be at the TN transplant centre in 24 24 hours or even much less (don't remember the exact period of time that was stated). Otherwise (when nor showing up in time) the patient would be re-scheduled back to the bottom of the list.
In Jobs' case, this latter requirement was easily met by means of a nice private Gulfstream business jet, of course.
Also referring to Jobs, a transplant surgeon said in an interview that in his area all patients with a medical history of cancer would be generally excluded from getting a donor liver at all, due to the fact that there weren't enough livers available for all the patients without any cancer history.
On-ear (left and right parts have their separate ear-clip), pretty linear characteristics (no particular "bass boosting"), with an analytical, somehow "cool" (as opposed to "warm") output.
In my opinion, the Yuin G1A and G2A are excellent for classical and voice music, including solo instruments and quartets. Enthusiasts of Hard Rock and Heavy Metal would be disappointed, though. They'd rather look elsewhere.
If your mobile audio device will not drive high impedance earphones, the G2A (low ohm) will do fine. Last time I checked, the G2A was $49 in the U.S., around £45 in the U.K. One can get Yuins from Hong Kong as well, see the offerings of your preferred auction house on the internet.
(Most portable devices will need a portable amp to drive the G1A, due to its high impedance. And it is way above the price limit)
Note: Both the G1A and G2A do *not* isolate the user acoustically, they let pass a good portion of environmental sound (and noise).
'every integer can be expressed as the sum of two primes'
were correct, Goldbach's conjecture would be a very simple way to find a huge number of primes.
If so, any given odd integer would be the sum of an even prime (with a very limited choice, namely the number 2) and another prime, one of the odd ones. If so, any given odd integer would lead to a prime, the ultra-easy way.
But it doesn't. You don't necessarily get a prime as a result by just taking an arbitrary odd integer and subtracting 2 from it. In most cases, you'll get another odd integer and that's it.
So 'every even integer can be expressed as the sum of two primes' is a more precise way to put Goldbach's conjecture.
Or even as "vehicles"? How's that supposed to work?
There will be certainly be one of these "nomad planets" available in our vicinity with earth-like gravity plus a not-too-toxic atmosphere plus a magnetic field protecting against cosmic radiation, even such a planet heading in the desired direction like, say, Alpha Centauri.
Fine, so far.
But then, do what? Just sit comfortably on the surface of such a "nomad planet" and wait a million years or two until this "raft to the stars" arrives anywhere near Alpha Centauri?
The crew of a spaceship discovers an object that turns out to be a huge Dyson sphere around a star built artificially by an unknown old civilization. The inner surface of the sphere is inhabitable, has a breathable atmosphere and calls for exploration, exploration big time.;-)
Later there were two sequels, "Orbitsville Departure" (1983) and "Orbitsville Judgment" (1990).
I liked these novels - at least - as much as Larry Niven's "Ringworld" series.
Actually, the wheel in circular shape is just the most common type as it is pretty fit for a frequently found - albeit boring - shape of surface to ride on, i.e. a flat surface, in an over-simplified manner called a "road".;-)
If the surface (the "road", in a more general sense) given had been designed properly (and skilfully), a square wheel might just be the right shape for a smooth ride on it:
Hmm? Apple was the one that pushed for and now only sells DRM free music.
That was only after a couple of years when Apple had been the biggest online seller of DRM-ridden music, worldwide. They sold nearly a billion of DRM'ed music files.
Apple has been the "Sheriff of Nottingham" in terms of DRM for years before they started to be a kind of "Robin Hood" against DRM, so to speak.
Also, as far as I know, this heroic anti-DRM attitude in the iTunes Store still doesn't apply to the movie/video/TV-show content.
AFAIK, "dark matter" is supposed to be "exotic matter" so buckyball structures don't belong here.
Also, AFAIRC, it is called "dark" in the sense that it does not interact with light (photons) at all. It doesn't reflect light, it doesn't absorb certain frequencies of light, either.
So spectrography (or is it spectroscopy?) - which has been used for the detection of the buckies mentioned in the article - wouldn't be of any help to detect dark matter, let alone analyze its internal structure.
Slashdot Mirror
(If they were friendly, they'd have been wiped out already by another race that is not.)
As a side note, it will be anyone's guess where our civilization would belong to in case of an encounter, to the friendly ones or, rather, to the "wipe 'em out" category...
But there is a hypothetical case where everything we need can be made by robots, even the robots. In that case we would need a new economic system to distribute wealth.
Agreed, full-heartedly.
In addition to this, some adjustments to the legal system will be necessary as well.
As the French writer Anatole France put it in 1894, in a pretty cynical way:
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."
The alternative to these adjustments (in fact, a lot more than just that, of course), to quote from a posting above, by Mr. Tom Guycot:
The only other option is the one we're currently going down, which is that of some kind of sci fi dystopian corporate future with massive slums/even greater prison population (maybe they'll just start merging them)
But that thing looks like the Staten Island Ferry. A nice one, but a ferry none the less.
I just went to Google, typed in yachts and hit image. There were some truly beautiful boats; sail and powered. Steve Jobs was NO boat designer.
Philippe Starck isn't, either.
The stern of the vessel has obviously been designed with later alternative purpose use in mind.
So she might end up as a luxury ferry boat delivering services exclusively for owners of eight and twelve cylinder cars (Bugattis, Porsches, Bentleys, Lamborghinis, you name it) between some of the most fashionable sea side locations of the world, such as Hyannis Port and Biarritz were in their days.
Maybe one of the princes in the Persian Gulf area wants to run a ferry between Dubai and Kuwait, who knows? Just cut a wide enough opening into the stern of the hull, Philippe Starck will again be pleased to help with the aestetics, I am sure.
The thing is dead ugly.
I'll go for the home made bison and cheese stuffed ravioli, thank you.
As to the garlic soup, don't bother. ;-)
Relations between humans tend to be difficult enough even w/o garlic.
"Why did all that personal data reside on the laptop of one special agent?"
Probably it didn't and doesn't.
Reside on the laptop of *just one* special agent, that is.
Whenever one of these special agents gets something particular from the boss, all the others want that, too.
For a number of scientific considerations, one can treat elementary particles (like the electron) as point-like objects, and legitimately so.
But the Planck length is a unit that is about 18 magnitudes (i.e., 18 powers of 10) smaller than anything one might define as the "size" of an electron.
If you imagine a ruler with a dozen Planck lenghts as units printed on it instead of inches, then in comparison an electron would be an enormous object, much bigger than the size of a planet.
"Representative Ben Wade stated that evolution is just a theory"
Just another politician who doesn't know anything about the essential terms and methodologies science is supposed to be based on.
This would still not be anything of a big deal - if these people just could keep themselves away from talking publicly about science and, even more important, about science education as part of their political agenda.
P.S. Whenever I hear this "... is just a theory" statement, in the first moment I should like to learn an example for something that is *not* "just a theory" according to people like Mr. Wade and others of his kind. But then, thinking again, I am not sure if I really want that at all. It might perfectly well turn out to be a ridiculous, boring experience, along the lines of "heavens", "hell", "eternal punishment" etc...
A mac :)
Hmmm...
And which distro would you recommend? ;-)
for the U.S. government including agencies like NSA, CIA, etc.?
I read another possible answer to the "Why Tennessee?" question.
That article back then said, that, unlike most states in the U.S., Tennessee doesn't require a patient to be a resident of the state in order to be entered to the recipients' list.
It was required that when a trasplant organ was available and person X was on top of the list, this person should be at the TN transplant centre in 24 24 hours or even much less (don't remember the exact period of time that was stated). Otherwise (when nor showing up in time) the patient would be re-scheduled back to the bottom of the list.
In Jobs' case, this latter requirement was easily met by means of a nice private Gulfstream business jet, of course.
Also referring to Jobs, a transplant surgeon said in an interview that in his area all patients with a medical history of cancer would be generally excluded from getting a donor liver at all, due to the fact that there weren't enough livers available for all the patients without any cancer history.
On-ear (left and right parts have their separate ear-clip), pretty linear characteristics (no particular "bass boosting"), with an analytical, somehow "cool" (as opposed to "warm") output.
In my opinion, the Yuin G1A and G2A are excellent for classical and voice music, including solo instruments and quartets.
Enthusiasts of Hard Rock and Heavy Metal would be disappointed, though. They'd rather look elsewhere.
If your mobile audio device will not drive high impedance earphones, the G2A (low ohm) will do fine.
Last time I checked, the G2A was $49 in the U.S., around £45 in the U.K.
One can get Yuins from Hong Kong as well, see the offerings of your preferred auction house on the internet.
(Most portable devices will need a portable amp to drive the G1A, due to its high impedance. And it is way above the price limit)
Note: Both the G1A and G2A do *not* isolate the user acoustically, they let pass a good portion of environmental sound (and noise).
'every integer can be expressed as the sum of two primes'
were correct, Goldbach's conjecture would be a very simple way to find a huge number of primes.
If so, any given odd integer would be the sum of an even prime (with a very limited choice, namely the number 2) and another prime, one of the odd ones.
If so, any given odd integer would lead to a prime, the ultra-easy way.
But it doesn't. You don't necessarily get a prime as a result by just taking an arbitrary odd integer and subtracting 2 from it. In most cases, you'll get another odd integer and that's it.
So 'every even integer can be expressed as the sum of two primes' is a more precise way to put Goldbach's conjecture.
Considering possible inflation over 20 years, the pyjamas (pajamas) for the crew alone might cost more than 1 trillion.
(admittedly, that's worst case).
Remember, Enterprise had a crew of 400, although they never bothered to show us more than ten or twelve of them.
Are we all going to die?
No, not all, certainly not.
Some of us will simply miss the boat, like always.
Or even as "vehicles"? How's that supposed to work?
There will be certainly be one of these "nomad planets" available in our vicinity with earth-like gravity plus a not-too-toxic atmosphere plus a magnetic field protecting against cosmic radiation, even such a planet heading in the desired direction like, say, Alpha Centauri.
Fine, so far.
But then, do what? Just sit comfortably on the surface of such a "nomad planet" and wait a million years or two until this "raft to the stars" arrives anywhere near Alpha Centauri?
"Orbitsville" (1975)
The crew of a spaceship discovers an object that turns out to be a huge Dyson sphere around a star built artificially by an unknown old civilization. The inner surface of the sphere is inhabitable, has a breathable atmosphere and calls for exploration, exploration big time. ;-)
Later there were two sequels, "Orbitsville Departure" (1983) and "Orbitsville Judgment" (1990).
I liked these novels - at least - as much as Larry Niven's "Ringworld" series.
"The Inverted World" (1974)
Great plot of a "world" that some of its inhabitants perceive as being of hyperbolical geometry.
or be driving around on octagons.
Actually, the wheel in circular shape is just the most common type as it is pretty fit for a frequently found - albeit boring - shape of surface to ride on, i.e. a flat surface, in an over-simplified manner called a "road". ;-)
If the surface (the "road", in a more general sense) given had been designed properly (and skilfully), a square wheel might just be the right shape for a smooth ride on it:
http://mathtourist.blogspot.com/2011/05/riding-on-square-wheels.html :-)
I'd suggest Linux Mint, and in particular, Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE).
http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=1818
There used to be DVD-Audio which was way, way better than CD quality but ever since iTunes all music quality has gone to shit.
DVD Audio is still around.
DVD-Audio authoring software is available for various OS platforms:
For Linux (and BSD and Solaris),
http://dvd-audio.sourceforge.net/
For Mac OS
Burn - open source, free
still running on PPC Macs from OS X 10.3.9, also on Intel Macs, a 64bit-version available, too:
http://burn-osx.sourceforge.net/Pages/English/home.html
Minnetonka Disc Welder - commercial
http://www.minnetonkaaudio.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=70&Itemid=93&lang=en
For Windows
Minnetonka Disc Welder - commercial
http://www.minnetonkaaudio.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=70&Itemid=93&lang=en
DVD-Audio Solo - commercial
http://www.cirlinca.com/
You'll also need a DVD recorder capable of DVD-Audio and a respective player.
For PCs, LG Electronics and Pioneer used to have such hardware.
Hmm? Apple was the one that pushed for and now only sells DRM free music.
That was only after a couple of years when Apple had been the biggest online seller of DRM-ridden music, worldwide. They sold nearly a billion of DRM'ed music files.
Apple has been the "Sheriff of Nottingham" in terms of DRM for years before they started to be a kind of "Robin Hood" against DRM, so to speak.
Also, as far as I know, this heroic anti-DRM attitude in the iTunes Store still doesn't apply to the movie/video/TV-show content.
I hope they use that money to further stifle innovation.
Apple lawyers are already trying hard to do so. Very hard.
Worldwide.
"that the company restore its quarterly dividend which Jobs suspended in 1995"
Jobs couldn't suspend anything at Apple in 1995.
Jobs wasn't even at Apple in 1995 to do so.
AFAIK, "dark matter" is supposed to be "exotic matter" so buckyball structures don't belong here.
Also, AFAIRC, it is called "dark" in the sense that it does not interact with light (photons) at all.
It doesn't reflect light, it doesn't absorb certain frequencies of light, either.
So spectrography (or is it spectroscopy?) - which has been used for the detection of the buckies mentioned in the article - wouldn't be of any help to detect dark matter, let alone analyze its internal structure.
"I was uneasy when I first noticed that Apple had taken ownership of CUPS, and in this case my experience is that that disquiet is justified."
As a Gnu/Linux and Mac OS X user (with an ever growing tendency towards Linux and FOSS) I have been looking forward to this moment as well.
Now that Apple's decided to fork CUPS eventually, we don't have to be too interested in what their fork's fate will be in the future, do we?
Little Red Riding Hood will come to our rescue here
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel/2012-January/161306.html
and so will
http://www.openprinting.org/