If anything dies off, then perhaps because they were weak and could not survive in todays harsh world. Is it worthwhile to bring them back to life, and would they be able to survive on their own? Or would we have to contain them at zoos and spend a lot of money to keep them going? Is it worth the effort?
Fully 99% of all the species that have ever existed on earth are extinct. Natural selection is not some kind of judge deciding what has more worth to live than others, it is a random walk through environment-space. In nature, species go extinct because they're not suited to the changing environment (like North America joining up with South America, and all the North American mammals sucessfully competing for food with the now-extinct South American marsupials). It is not a question of being "weak". It is dumb luck (like the case above) that changes the environment, and hence changes the total set of species existing in that environment. We are now at the point where the environment isn't changing us, we are changing the environment in a non-geological time scale. I think it is noble to pursue science that will enable us to save a species from a currently changing environment (possibly caused by us) sometime in the future.
Regardless of all this sentimentality, all the bother about Mammoths and the ilk is "hot press" - interesting stories that get the public's attention (and funding dollars). The science behind all the fanfare is certainly worth pursuing. It will teach us much about the environment around us, and a hell of a lot about ourselves. It has applications across the board, even including space travel. When the public hears about "lets ressurect a mammoth" or "housecat gives birth to wildcat", some people get all up in arms about "why are we spending money on this?" The real point of these aren't the mammoths or the wildcats, its the science advancing that is allowing us to do this. Other people will think "Maybe now I will be able to have a child, too!", some will think "we can use this to transport animal species to other worlds at lower costs", and still others will think "I should write another sequel to Jurassic Park".
Sit back a moment, get past the "mammoths in zoos" hype, and think about all the things this advancement could mean.
In the end, it is contributing to our technological capabilities. Who knows, maybe after all is said and done, perhaps a species we'll wind up saving will be our own.
The internet may force the two groups of morons in Ottawa and Washington to remove the stupid border in the TV industry.
I'd like to believe that, too, but we should never underestimate the power of stupidity. If only we could harness it, we'd have an incredible free energy source!
Emily Vander Veer appears to be one of those journalists that prefers to try and get attention by trying to twist good things into bad things - cause hey, that's what makes a good story, right?
If i were to release some music to mp3.com (which i have been considering doing), it is because i think that maybe a few other people can enjoy something i have created and mp3.com is a nice established central high-bandwidth public and free place to do it. Anybody who thinks that they're going to "make it big" after they post on mp3.com is smoking too much crack and has delusions of how great they are. Sure, it will likely happen to some artist at some point, but don't count on it happening to you. Maybe i'm naive, but i believe that most artists are posting because they want to share their music, not because they think its going to make them lots of money and they're going to be *cough* discovered.
My challenge to you, Emily Vander Veer, and anybody else that has a problem with the online music sources to which anybody can submit music as an artist, is to get off your ass and do something about it instead of complaining! Start up your own version of mp3.com and stick to the ideals you treasure....or are you just a whiner that prefers sitting on the couch trying to make yourself feel better by tearing down the work of others?
This is horrible! I have been considering moving to Australia (from Canada) with my wife, who is also a programmer/engineer. We are both seeing so many nonsense things like this in Australia that we are getting discouraged
Even without the changes, those cable rates are horrible! $95 (Aus) for a monthly quota of 250Mb? Here we can get an limit of ~2Gb for $40 (Can = about $45 Aus last time i checked), and that limit is only paid lip service - they don't enforce it yet. ~$0.30 per Mb after that? that's also mental - so if i were to download the starwars quicktime trailer, it would cost me ~$7.50! Their pricing scheme is too high - their greed is showing.
Good luck on Optus, my southern friends! I hope they provide better deals.
Here in Canada, the body that governs communications (CRTC) made a decision that anybody can sell cable modem services via the existing cable network. (as in, the cable companies can't use their local monopoly status to sell their data services exclusively) This is recent, so it i haven't seen any other ISPs selling over the cable network, but this is sure going to keep them honest!
It wasn't light reflected off the planet but a huge coincidence in orbits that put the planet directly between earth and its star. The star dimmed noticably and the spectra changed as the starlight passed through the planets atmosphere.
Yes, light was discovered reflecting off of a planet recently. You're thinking of the one from a couple of weeks back. More recently, reflected light was observed, although this hasn't been peer reviewed, yet, AFAIK.
"A startling image of a planet passing in front of a bright star has confirmed what scientists before only could deduce with math -- there are planets beyond our solar system."
It's great that we've discovered six new planets, but what i found WAY more interesting from the press release was the following (bolding by me):
In addition to the discovery of six new planets, the researchers gathered new data on four known planets, whose orbits they had previously studied. Two of them showed long-term trends in their orbits indicating the presence of a companion, which could be an additional planet. These findings are significant because previously only one other system of multiple planets, around the star Upsilon Andromedae, had been identified outside our solar system.
This is so new to us, I don't think i've really seen any work on star study to determine if there are longer period planets. For instance, the one confirmed via the brightness method two weeks back had a period of 3.3 days. Put in their local terms, one of their YEARS is 3.3 of our DAYS. To accurately get something with a period on the order of one of our years or more, a longer study period is needed. (this isn't quite true according to nyquist, but increased samples give increased accuracy) Try getting all that telescope time if you're a lowly grad student with no nearby observatory and meager funding! (especially Keck!)
[humour]Maybe we can all hook up our old satellite tv dishes like Charlie Sheen and have a big distributed star observing effort in a radio telescope version of the SETI stuff!;-)[/humour]
Anyway, to get the headers in the microsoft mishmash (as per the subject line), open the mail in its own window. Under the "View" menu, select "Options". A small window there will provide you with full headers. Note, you have to perform this series of operations for *every* single email. I don't like microsoft.
I have seen spam arrive based on global (internal) mailing lists at work...then watched as a hundred "Please take me off your mailing list" messages are sent to the same global mailing list....and then watched the recursion as more people respond to those with "me too!" or "please take me off your mailing list", along with people saying "Just stop replying to these and the mail will die out!", which garners responses of "please take me off your mailing list"....ad infinitum.
If you had the power to change ONE thing in the computer world to the way you thought it SHOULD be (be it coding, politics, business), what would you change? Why?
So why don't you post more information about this GPL-violating company so legal precedent can be set. Remember, we'll need proof, like leaked source code or something.
Stallman is doing more than that. He is insisting that the name of the OS commonly known as "Linux" *really* is named "GNU/Linux". I certainly agree that credit should be given where it is due, and it certainly is due here. However, Stallman is approaching this issue incorrectly (IMHO) and blasting over the whole concept of "free" software. Linus should be able to call his distribution, which has a large GNU component, "Linux", "GNU/Linux", or "Lick My Love Pump". The point being is that it's not up to Stallman to decide what it's called. Last time I checked the GPL had no restrictions on what you could call your product. Perhaps you've seen a more recent copy?
Re:Can anyone give a timeline on this issue?
on
GNU Inside?
·
· Score: 1
I suggest that 98% [1] of the people who currently know about Project GNU would *not* know about it at *all* if it weren't for Linux.
"Starmaps" is an arbitrary word/name. I also included the phrase "or OS for that matter". My point was that either he wants to follow the spirit of the GPL or he doesn't. Either way is fine with me, but he should come clean and not say "it's free (as in free speech), but you have to call it what i want you to call it".
So, if i make a tool (or even an OS for that matter) called "Starmaps" that relies heavily on GNU, Stallman expects me to call it "GNU/Starmaps"? If he does, as he seems to be doing for linux, i think he's a hypocrite and not following the spirit he laid out in the GPL.
Why don't we just change "linux" to "Stallman's_being_an_ass", so we can call it "GNU/Stallman's_being_an_ass"?
Disclaimer:Yes, i know how much Stallman has done for the world with the FSF, GNU, and the GPL, but that doesn't make him anything less than a human that may or may not have ego problems, be unreasonable, or have a host of other disfunctions that wind up making him look bad, even in the eyes of those who most value him. I value him, but MAN is this starting to grate on me!
Well, they could have a Solar system if they also had a sun named Sol. Who are we to tell aliens what they can call their star? It's just like my friend Joe, who also has a cousin named Joe. If there were bodies orbiting them, we could call both systems "Joeular Systems".:-P
You don't need permission for quotes, as far as i know. As long as you're not quoting, say, the entire text and calling it a quote, you're fine. For instance, when you write a paper and quote a few lines from some other paper, you don't need permission. All that is required is that (besides it being relevant) you reference it.
Slashdot Mirror
Fully 99% of all the species that have ever existed on earth are extinct. Natural selection is not some kind of judge deciding what has more worth to live than others, it is a random walk through environment-space. In nature, species go extinct because they're not suited to the changing environment (like North America joining up with South America, and all the North American mammals sucessfully competing for food with the now-extinct South American marsupials). It is not a question of being "weak". It is dumb luck (like the case above) that changes the environment, and hence changes the total set of species existing in that environment. We are now at the point where the environment isn't changing us, we are changing the environment in a non-geological time scale. I think it is noble to pursue science that will enable us to save a species from a currently changing environment (possibly caused by us) sometime in the future.
Regardless of all this sentimentality, all the bother about Mammoths and the ilk is "hot press" - interesting stories that get the public's attention (and funding dollars). The science behind all the fanfare is certainly worth pursuing. It will teach us much about the environment around us, and a hell of a lot about ourselves. It has applications across the board, even including space travel. When the public hears about "lets ressurect a mammoth" or "housecat gives birth to wildcat", some people get all up in arms about "why are we spending money on this?" The real point of these aren't the mammoths or the wildcats, its the science advancing that is allowing us to do this. Other people will think "Maybe now I will be able to have a child, too!", some will think "we can use this to transport animal species to other worlds at lower costs", and still others will think "I should write another sequel to Jurassic Park".
Sit back a moment, get past the "mammoths in zoos" hype, and think about all the things this advancement could mean.
In the end, it is contributing to our technological capabilities. Who knows, maybe after all is said and done, perhaps a species we'll wind up saving will be our own.
I'd like to believe that, too, but we should never underestimate the power of stupidity. If only we could harness it, we'd have an incredible free energy source!
If i were to release some music to mp3.com (which i have been considering doing), it is because i think that maybe a few other people can enjoy something i have created and mp3.com is a nice established central high-bandwidth public and free place to do it. Anybody who thinks that they're going to "make it big" after they post on mp3.com is smoking too much crack and has delusions of how great they are. Sure, it will likely happen to some artist at some point, but don't count on it happening to you. Maybe i'm naive, but i believe that most artists are posting because they want to share their music, not because they think its going to make them lots of money and they're going to be *cough* discovered.
My challenge to you, Emily Vander Veer, and anybody else that has a problem with the online music sources to which anybody can submit music as an artist, is to get off your ass and do something about it instead of complaining! Start up your own version of mp3.com and stick to the ideals you treasure....or are you just a whiner that prefers sitting on the couch trying to make yourself feel better by tearing down the work of others?
I think you're missing the point that this company is Canadian, not from the USA. The US congress has no say in the matter.
Even without the changes, those cable rates are horrible! $95 (Aus) for a monthly quota of 250Mb? Here we can get an limit of ~2Gb for $40 (Can = about $45 Aus last time i checked), and that limit is only paid lip service - they don't enforce it yet. ~$0.30 per Mb after that? that's also mental - so if i were to download the starwars quicktime trailer, it would cost me ~$7.50! Their pricing scheme is too high - their greed is showing.
Good luck on Optus, my southern friends! I hope they provide better deals.
Here in Canada, the body that governs communications (CRTC) made a decision that anybody can sell cable modem services via the existing cable network. (as in, the cable companies can't use their local monopoly status to sell their data services exclusively) This is recent, so it i haven't seen any other ISPs selling over the cable network, but this is sure going to keep them honest!
Yes, light was discovered reflecting off of a planet recently. You're thinking of the one from a couple of weeks back. More recently, reflected light was observed, although this hasn't been peer reviewed, yet, AFAIK.
The Nov 22/99 BBC News article (i couldn't find a more scientific one) at http://news.bbc. co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_531000/531486.stm states:
"...scientists from the Department of Astronomy at St Andrews University, Scotland, claim to have detected the light reflected off a planet itself."
You're thinking of another discovery mentioned by CNN on Nov 13/99 at http://cnn.com/TECH/space/9911/13/n ewplanet.ap/ which stated:
"A startling image of a planet passing in front of a bright star has confirmed what scientists before only could deduce with math -- there are planets beyond our solar system."
In addition to the discovery of six new planets, the researchers gathered new data on four known planets, whose orbits they had previously studied. Two of them showed long-term trends in their orbits indicating the presence of a companion, which could be an additional planet. These findings are significant because previously only one other system of multiple planets, around the star Upsilon Andromedae, had been identified outside our solar system.
This is so new to us, I don't think i've really seen any work on star study to determine if there are longer period planets. For instance, the one confirmed via the brightness method two weeks back had a period of 3.3 days. Put in their local terms, one of their YEARS is 3.3 of our DAYS. To accurately get something with a period on the order of one of our years or more, a longer study period is needed. (this isn't quite true according to nyquist, but increased samples give increased accuracy) Try getting all that telescope time if you're a lowly grad student with no nearby observatory and meager funding! (especially Keck!)
You can see the NASA press release regarding this at ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pa o/pressrel/1999/99-140.txt
[humour]Maybe we can all hook up our old satellite tv dishes like Charlie Sheen and have a big distributed star observing effort in a radio telescope version of the SETI stuff! ;-)[/humour]
Yeah, but you don't hold the cell modem to the side of your head. r^(-1/2) makes all the difference.
Why's that? Are you suggesting he was trolling? That account occurs in at least two of Tesla's biographies.
Anyway, to get the headers in the microsoft mishmash (as per the subject line), open the mail in its own window. Under the "View" menu, select "Options". A small window there will provide you with full headers. Note, you have to perform this series of operations for *every* single email. I don't like microsoft.
geez, people can be dumb.
If you had the power to change ONE thing in the computer world to the way you thought it SHOULD be (be it coding, politics, business), what would you change? Why?
I don't have time to read it now, so i'll print this article out and read it later.
So why don't you post more information about this GPL-violating company so legal precedent can be set. Remember, we'll need proof, like leaked source code or something.
It won't be Open Source (tm), it'll be Microsoft Semi-Open Source with an End User License Agreement that would make RMS puke.
Don't fret - I'm sure it would make the rest of us puke, too.
Stallman is doing more than that. He is insisting that the name of the OS commonly known as "Linux" *really* is named "GNU/Linux". I certainly agree that credit should be given where it is due, and it certainly is due here. However, Stallman is approaching this issue incorrectly (IMHO) and blasting over the whole concept of "free" software. Linus should be able to call his distribution, which has a large GNU component, "Linux", "GNU/Linux", or "Lick My Love Pump". The point being is that it's not up to Stallman to decide what it's called. Last time I checked the GPL had no restrictions on what you could call your product. Perhaps you've seen a more recent copy?
I suggest that 98% [1] of the people who currently know about Project GNU would *not* know about it at *all* if it weren't for Linux.
[1] from the department of made up statistics.
"Starmaps" is an arbitrary word/name. I also included the phrase "or OS for that matter". My point was that either he wants to follow the spirit of the GPL or he doesn't. Either way is fine with me, but he should come clean and not say "it's free (as in free speech), but you have to call it what i want you to call it".
(meee toooooo)
So, if i make a tool (or even an OS for that matter) called "Starmaps" that relies heavily on GNU, Stallman expects me to call it "GNU/Starmaps"? If he does, as he seems to be doing for linux, i think he's a hypocrite and not following the spirit he laid out in the GPL.
Why don't we just change "linux" to "Stallman's_being_an_ass", so we can call it "GNU/Stallman's_being_an_ass"?
Disclaimer:Yes, i know how much Stallman has done for the world with the FSF, GNU, and the GPL, but that doesn't make him anything less than a human that may or may not have ego problems, be unreasonable, or have a host of other disfunctions that wind up making him look bad, even in the eyes of those who most value him. I value him, but MAN is this starting to grate on me!
Well, they could have a Solar system if they also :-P
had a sun named Sol. Who are we to tell aliens
what they can call their star? It's just like my
friend Joe, who also has a cousin named Joe. If
there were bodies orbiting them, we could call
both systems "Joeular Systems".
either way, it's staggering!
(the subject says it all)
You don't need permission for quotes, as far as i know. As long as you're not quoting, say, the entire text and calling it a quote, you're fine. For instance, when you write a paper and quote a few lines from some other paper, you don't need permission. All that is required is that (besides it being relevant) you reference it.
internet printers sounds like another target for the biggest *hole in the world, Spamford Wallace.