Apparently none of those jokers ever read Heinlein's The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress. It's overkill to lob nukes from the Moon. Simply throw rocks.
My fear is that, literally, he who gets to the Moon and has a permanent base first will rule the world. I suspect it'll be the Chinese or Russians.
Seriously, if somebody took up residence there and put some boosters on a few boulders, there'd be absolutely nothing those Earthbound could do about it.
Real extraterrestrials will look nothing like human. They might be super-intelligent shades of the color blue. If we're lucky.
Differentiating them extraterrestrials and the landscape may be problematic.
In any case, all the exoplanet talk is entirely speculative. During my lifetime, scientists expected to find life on both Mars and Venus -- and those planets are infinitely closer to Earth than any exoplanet. It was only after sending probes to Venus, for example, that we discovered it was a hell-hole incapable of anything resembling terrestrial life.
Anyone who tells you they've found an Earth-like exoplanet is flat-out ignorant. We've found exoplanets in roughly the right orbits to possibly sustain human life -- but the same could be said of Venus and Mars, and look how that turned out.
I'm sorry, but in June I'm getting 100GB as part of my $36-annually MetaARPA membership over at SDF. Not to mention the UNIX shell account I've been using there for fifteen years. And the private Minecraft server. And Gopher. And dev tools. And VPNs, VPSs, a boatload of other stuff...
Not to mention I'll be able to mount the SDF 100GB to my Linux box using SSHFS under FUSE.
Three million accounts intrigue me, so naturally I went looking for the posted list.
I can't find it. I find endless references to the story, but no list. I can't find Zarefarid's blog. This strikes me as odd, since the list was supposedly publicly posted there. Usually by this time, there are downloaded copies on all the file-sharing services, torrents, etc. There's nothing.
Knowing as I do that the majority of stories on which the press reports are wildly sensationalized or at worst entirely fictional, the lack of a list makes me think this may fall in the latter category.
Box's DAVfs is only useless if you have an OS that doesn't speak DAV. I have mine configured via davfs2 under fuse, and it automounts when I enter the mount directory (using AutoFS).
Of course, one needs a Linux distro to make it work...;)
The better part of a year. I'm extremely pleased, having had my account converted to SSHFS free of charge.
However, unless EchoFS does something differently very soon, I think they're going the way of the Dodo Bird. They aren't marketing themselves well, and I expect services like Box.com to overtake them shortly.
It's a pity, because they're very, very good. But if nobody knows about the service, they won't survive.
There are a number of file managers on Android that can read a variety of network shares. I use FX File Explorer, and I have SSHFSes, Box, and two Windows shares configured.
I also use FolderSync Lite to automatically mirror files. Though to be honest, with 30GB to 50GB storage to play with, I store a massive amount of data in the cloud and use the file manager apps to copy them to my Android when needed. I mostly do this with my ePub library since I'm keeping my music and videos with Google (30GB).
Just for reference, I live in small-town Iowa -- after having spent most of the 1990s in Chicagoland.
Small towns are the only place where any level of freedom still exists in the U.S. It's getting worse, though. It's as nothing, however, compared to even Des Moines, where I work. DSM, like all American cities, has become a police state. In Redfield, you're still pretty much left alone.
That doesn't mean we don't do things that are illegal. If you live in the U.S., statistically you're always in violation of at least three laws, whether you know it or not.
Essentially, things have been engineered so that anyone can be picked up at any time due to some violation of some law. If you're not picked up, it's because the cops didn't want to. 24x7, they now have something with which you can be charged at all times.
This is kind of old. I'm a college professor in a computer science department. Our students were affected at the beginning of this term (we offer free external hard drives on which to keep their work). About four weeks in, the supply opened back up. We initially issued 16GB flash drives, and now they all have their 320GB USB drives.
Windows 8: Metro and no Start Menu. No one I've thrown the developer's release to can figure out how to make it work.
GNOME 3: Just plain crazy. Users I throw at it have no idea what to do.
Unity: Utter and complete suckage. I've been using *NIX for decades and can't use Unity (or GNOME 3). Users I throw at it just stare blankly.
OS X: I know Mac-heads love it. I've tried it, via theming Ubuntu. Better than Win8, G3, or Unity, but not as good as the plain 'ol Start Menu.
I'm sorry, but menus make sense on a desktop, they're reasonably untuitive, and there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to change it.
And in changing it, Ubuntu (and G3) are shooting themselves in the foot. Look, Win8 is going to ship with a user interface with which users cannot interface. G3 and Unity are no better, and I see no reason to believe that Ubuntu has seen the light with HUD.
If Ubuntu had a user interface that was actually intuitive, the distro would have the opportunity to get users who will throw their hands up at Win8 in disgust. Unfortunately, Ubuntu has an interface that leaves users with a "deer in the headlights" look.
This is a stupid interface. All modern interfaces are about to suck (stupidly). Pity Linux couldn't be different at a time when it would work to its advantage.
Um.... what about the CO2 generated by actually using a bicycle?
I don't know about anyone else, but when I ride my bike, I tend to breathe at a considerably higher rate than when I drive my car. Respiration takes in oxygen and other elements and produces CO2. Logically, therefore, bicycling cannot be a carbon-neutral activity.
I can only conclude that the logical resolution to this problem is actually very simple. If you're really worried about your carbon footprint, the only possible course of action is suicide.
Unfortunately, as other posters have noted, even dying isn't a carbon-neutral activity. However, I still advocate it, if for no other reason than it would rid the world of a whole bunch of self-important blow-hards who've been hoodwinked by a theory that in no way employs the scientific method.
I'm less concerned with the rapid major revision releases than I am with the damned thing being broken on Ubuntu 11.04.
I used Firefox almost exclusively since it was a released product. I was one of the people who used to take IE install CDs and use them for target practice. Really. And this was in the late 1990s.
Then, a couple of revisions back, it broke. Suddenly loading YouTube videos turned into a 50% likelihood that Firefox would start thrashing to the point where a kill -9 was necessary. I tried Chrome -- ye gods, was that a mistake. The thrashing increased to the point where I couldn't even open a bash window to kill -9 it. The only option was a cold boot.
Linux is just too damned good an OS to be forced to act like a Windows user and hit the power button. I refuse to run software that makes Linux act like Windows.
So I went to Opera. It runs. I can play YouTube videos. There aren't nearly as many add-ons as FF or Chrome, but add-ons hardly matter when your hard drive is constantly thrashing and you can't even switch between windows.
Too many major revisions? Yeah, probably. I can't really bring myself to care. The folks at Mozilla killed Firefox when it started thrashing. Now they're going to have to prove I can actually run the gorram thing before I try it again.
AGW is simply a good example of the press touting non-science as though it were fact. I bring it up as an example of how the press can completely buy into something because they have no understanding whatsoever of the scientific method. Real science requires the scientific method, not computer models based on assumptions as a replacement for the scientific method.
I reiterate: while it is interesting that 28 anti-protons appear to have been found trapped by the Earth's magnetic field, that isn't in itself indicative of anything other than 28 anti-protons were found. Touting this as an amazing event isn't appropriate. To do so is to buy into press releases rather than having anything to do with the scientific method.
Again, as I understand it, the annihilation occurs when particles actually collide. That's actually much harder to accomplish than it sounds like.
My understanding is that no one can keep manufactured antimatter together for very long because it's inherently unstable -- evidence that antimatter occurring naturally is extremely rare or outright impossible. I would have to acquaint myself more fully with CERN's experiments before I assumed that it was annihilation that caused it to fall apart. I'm not that familiar with the precise methods they're using. I assume that they slam the positron into orbit of the anti-proton and then attempt to keep it in one piece inside a magnetic "bottle." That's inherently an unstable environment. I've heard that it's the annihilation that causes it to come apart, but getting it to stay together in the first place is such a dicey proposition that I'd want to rely on personal examination of the experiment before assuming that what I've heard is true.
See, the press in general is so unreliable on anything resembling science that I always take any science "news" with a grain of salt. The press screws it up with such frequency that any other attitude makes no sense to me.
You get a reaction -- if you can get them to collide. You still need a linear accelerator to do it.
Again, the subatomic distances between particles are as comparably vast as the distance between galaxies. If you could shove a star from the Milky Way accurately enough, it would eventually hit a star from the Lesser Magellanic Cloud.
If anyone actually produces anti-matter in quantities large enough to be visible to the naked eye, I'll be happy to test this idea. Let's say CERN finally produces a balloon full of anti-hydrogen. I hereby volunteer to breathe in the entire quantity and exhale it in the next breath. I predict absolutely no harm to my body or any of the surrounding atoms. Even under those circumstances, the subatomic particles will not collide.
We're getting close, yes, if you consider that each of those actions is virtually impossible -- and therefore represent some finite improbability. Consequently, all we need to do to make the Improbability Drive at this point is some calculations and a nice, hot cup of tea.
Yes, there are reactions when electrons and positrons collide. However, getting them to collide requires a linear accelerator (think Fermilab or CERN).
Only in science fiction do you get collisions without an enormous amount of assistance. Even if I had a brick made of anti-granite, the electrons in my hand and the positrons in the brick wouldn't collide without first holding one of us down and then firing the other at it with such accuracy and velocity that sub-atomic particles would actually collide.
For all intents and purposes, the space between sub-atomic particles is like the space between galaxies. From the right distance, the Magellanic Clouds are indistinguishable from the Milky Way. They are not, however, actually touching.
I'd be considerably more interested in the movement of positrons through, say, a wire made of anti-copper.:D
They didn't find antimatter, they found anti-protons. Matter is what happens when particles arrange themselves a certain way. A few stray protons doesn't constitute matter: neither do some stray anti-protons.
Furthermore, they've found a whopping 28 of them in two years' research. Even if they'd found 28 atoms of anti-hydrogen (which would require that each anti-proton also have a positron), the amount is utterly irrelevant in terms of power generation. 28 atoms of anti-hydrogen (which I point out again that this is not) wouldn't produce a reaction capable of running a AA-battery flashlight.
I believe that the BBC has fallen victim to sensationalism and/or ignorance. It's pretty much what I've come to expect from the world press.
So if we could move CERN into orbit (impossible), capture the anti-protons (impossible), and get 28 positrons to orbit them (impossible), we might wind up with 28 whole atoms of anti-hydrogen.
Once again, the world press displays its complete scientific ignorance. This ain't even antimatter, just some anti-protons.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, considering the number of security cams that I can control simply by Googling for them, I can't say that this impresses me a hell of a lot.
Get rid of the cams directly on the Internet with no changes from the factory defaults and I'll be a bit more impressed.
Apparently none of those jokers ever read Heinlein's The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress. It's overkill to lob nukes from the Moon. Simply throw rocks.
My fear is that, literally, he who gets to the Moon and has a permanent base first will rule the world. I suspect it'll be the Chinese or Russians.
Seriously, if somebody took up residence there and put some boosters on a few boulders, there'd be absolutely nothing those Earthbound could do about it.
Real extraterrestrials will look nothing like human. They might be super-intelligent shades of the color blue. If we're lucky.
Differentiating them extraterrestrials and the landscape may be problematic.
In any case, all the exoplanet talk is entirely speculative. During my lifetime, scientists expected to find life on both Mars and Venus -- and those planets are infinitely closer to Earth than any exoplanet. It was only after sending probes to Venus, for example, that we discovered it was a hell-hole incapable of anything resembling terrestrial life.
Anyone who tells you they've found an Earth-like exoplanet is flat-out ignorant. We've found exoplanets in roughly the right orbits to possibly sustain human life -- but the same could be said of Venus and Mars, and look how that turned out.
I'm sorry, but in June I'm getting 100GB as part of my $36-annually MetaARPA membership over at SDF. Not to mention the UNIX shell account I've been using there for fifteen years. And the private Minecraft server. And Gopher. And dev tools. And VPNs, VPSs, a boatload of other stuff ...
Not to mention I'll be able to mount the SDF 100GB to my Linux box using SSHFS under FUSE.
Three million accounts intrigue me, so naturally I went looking for the posted list.
I can't find it. I find endless references to the story, but no list. I can't find Zarefarid's blog. This strikes me as odd, since the list was supposedly publicly posted there. Usually by this time, there are downloaded copies on all the file-sharing services, torrents, etc. There's nothing.
Knowing as I do that the majority of stories on which the press reports are wildly sensationalized or at worst entirely fictional, the lack of a list makes me think this may fall in the latter category.
Box's DAVfs is only useless if you have an OS that doesn't speak DAV. I have mine configured via davfs2 under fuse, and it automounts when I enter the mount directory (using AutoFS).
Of course, one needs a Linux distro to make it work ... ;)
Dakota Smith
The better part of a year. I'm extremely pleased, having had my account converted to SSHFS free of charge.
However, unless EchoFS does something differently very soon, I think they're going the way of the Dodo Bird. They aren't marketing themselves well, and I expect services like Box.com to overtake them shortly.
It's a pity, because they're very, very good. But if nobody knows about the service, they won't survive.
Dakota Smith
There are a number of file managers on Android that can read a variety of network shares. I use FX File Explorer, and I have SSHFSes, Box, and two Windows shares configured.
I also use FolderSync Lite to automatically mirror files. Though to be honest, with 30GB to 50GB storage to play with, I store a massive amount of data in the cloud and use the file manager apps to copy them to my Android when needed. I mostly do this with my ePub library since I'm keeping my music and videos with Google (30GB).
The cool part is that the people at EchoFS are easy to work with. They converted my DAV share to SSH for no charge and in about fifteen minutes.
I've got 50GB free at Box and 30GB free on EchoFS.com. Why should I care about 5GB? Just because it's Google?
I think a replica rifle is liable to cause some consternation at your average sporting event.
Well, almost the complete works. There's one novella not yet in the public domain.
Piper's complete works at Project Gutenberg.
Go now. Your brain will love you for the rest of your life.
Dakota Smith
Just for reference, I live in small-town Iowa -- after having spent most of the 1990s in Chicagoland.
Small towns are the only place where any level of freedom still exists in the U.S. It's getting worse, though. It's as nothing, however, compared to even Des Moines, where I work. DSM, like all American cities, has become a police state. In Redfield, you're still pretty much left alone.
That doesn't mean we don't do things that are illegal. If you live in the U.S., statistically you're always in violation of at least three laws, whether you know it or not.
Essentially, things have been engineered so that anyone can be picked up at any time due to some violation of some law. If you're not picked up, it's because the cops didn't want to. 24x7, they now have something with which you can be charged at all times.
Dakota Smith
This is kind of old. I'm a college professor in a computer science department. Our students were affected at the beginning of this term (we offer free external hard drives on which to keep their work). About four weeks in, the supply opened back up. We initially issued 16GB flash drives, and now they all have their 320GB USB drives.
I was amused when I read that Linus had switched to Xfce for the exact same reason I went to Xubuntu at v11.10.
As Linus noted: Xfce is a downgrade from GNOME2 -- but and upgrade from GNOME 3.
Dakota Smith
Have all UI devs completely lost it?
Windows 8: Metro and no Start Menu. No one I've thrown the developer's release to can figure out how to make it work.
GNOME 3: Just plain crazy. Users I throw at it have no idea what to do.
Unity: Utter and complete suckage. I've been using *NIX for decades and can't use Unity (or GNOME 3). Users I throw at it just stare blankly.
OS X: I know Mac-heads love it. I've tried it, via theming Ubuntu. Better than Win8, G3, or Unity, but not as good as the plain 'ol Start Menu.
I'm sorry, but menus make sense on a desktop, they're reasonably untuitive, and there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to change it.
And in changing it, Ubuntu (and G3) are shooting themselves in the foot. Look, Win8 is going to ship with a user interface with which users cannot interface. G3 and Unity are no better, and I see no reason to believe that Ubuntu has seen the light with HUD.
If Ubuntu had a user interface that was actually intuitive, the distro would have the opportunity to get users who will throw their hands up at Win8 in disgust. Unfortunately, Ubuntu has an interface that leaves users with a "deer in the headlights" look.
This is a stupid interface. All modern interfaces are about to suck (stupidly). Pity Linux couldn't be different at a time when it would work to its advantage.
Dakota Smith
Um .... what about the CO2 generated by actually using a bicycle?
I don't know about anyone else, but when I ride my bike, I tend to breathe at a considerably higher rate than when I drive my car. Respiration takes in oxygen and other elements and produces CO2. Logically, therefore, bicycling cannot be a carbon-neutral activity.
I can only conclude that the logical resolution to this problem is actually very simple. If you're really worried about your carbon footprint, the only possible course of action is suicide.
Unfortunately, as other posters have noted, even dying isn't a carbon-neutral activity. However, I still advocate it, if for no other reason than it would rid the world of a whole bunch of self-important blow-hards who've been hoodwinked by a theory that in no way employs the scientific method.
I'm less concerned with the rapid major revision releases than I am with the damned thing being broken on Ubuntu 11.04.
I used Firefox almost exclusively since it was a released product. I was one of the people who used to take IE install CDs and use them for target practice. Really. And this was in the late 1990s.
Then, a couple of revisions back, it broke. Suddenly loading YouTube videos turned into a 50% likelihood that Firefox would start thrashing to the point where a kill -9 was necessary. I tried Chrome -- ye gods, was that a mistake. The thrashing increased to the point where I couldn't even open a bash window to kill -9 it. The only option was a cold boot.
Linux is just too damned good an OS to be forced to act like a Windows user and hit the power button. I refuse to run software that makes Linux act like Windows.
So I went to Opera. It runs. I can play YouTube videos. There aren't nearly as many add-ons as FF or Chrome, but add-ons hardly matter when your hard drive is constantly thrashing and you can't even switch between windows.
Too many major revisions? Yeah, probably. I can't really bring myself to care. The folks at Mozilla killed Firefox when it started thrashing. Now they're going to have to prove I can actually run the gorram thing before I try it again.
AGW is simply a good example of the press touting non-science as though it were fact. I bring it up as an example of how the press can completely buy into something because they have no understanding whatsoever of the scientific method. Real science requires the scientific method, not computer models based on assumptions as a replacement for the scientific method.
I reiterate: while it is interesting that 28 anti-protons appear to have been found trapped by the Earth's magnetic field, that isn't in itself indicative of anything other than 28 anti-protons were found. Touting this as an amazing event isn't appropriate. To do so is to buy into press releases rather than having anything to do with the scientific method.
Again, as I understand it, the annihilation occurs when particles actually collide. That's actually much harder to accomplish than it sounds like.
My understanding is that no one can keep manufactured antimatter together for very long because it's inherently unstable -- evidence that antimatter occurring naturally is extremely rare or outright impossible. I would have to acquaint myself more fully with CERN's experiments before I assumed that it was annihilation that caused it to fall apart. I'm not that familiar with the precise methods they're using. I assume that they slam the positron into orbit of the anti-proton and then attempt to keep it in one piece inside a magnetic "bottle." That's inherently an unstable environment. I've heard that it's the annihilation that causes it to come apart, but getting it to stay together in the first place is such a dicey proposition that I'd want to rely on personal examination of the experiment before assuming that what I've heard is true.
See, the press in general is so unreliable on anything resembling science that I always take any science "news" with a grain of salt. The press screws it up with such frequency that any other attitude makes no sense to me.
You get a reaction -- if you can get them to collide. You still need a linear accelerator to do it.
Again, the subatomic distances between particles are as comparably vast as the distance between galaxies. If you could shove a star from the Milky Way accurately enough, it would eventually hit a star from the Lesser Magellanic Cloud.
If anyone actually produces anti-matter in quantities large enough to be visible to the naked eye, I'll be happy to test this idea. Let's say CERN finally produces a balloon full of anti-hydrogen. I hereby volunteer to breathe in the entire quantity and exhale it in the next breath. I predict absolutely no harm to my body or any of the surrounding atoms. Even under those circumstances, the subatomic particles will not collide.
We're getting close, yes, if you consider that each of those actions is virtually impossible -- and therefore represent some finite improbability. Consequently, all we need to do to make the Improbability Drive at this point is some calculations and a nice, hot cup of tea.
Sorry, I should have been more clear:
Yes, there are reactions when electrons and positrons collide. However, getting them to collide requires a linear accelerator (think Fermilab or CERN).
Only in science fiction do you get collisions without an enormous amount of assistance. Even if I had a brick made of anti-granite, the electrons in my hand and the positrons in the brick wouldn't collide without first holding one of us down and then firing the other at it with such accuracy and velocity that sub-atomic particles would actually collide.
For all intents and purposes, the space between sub-atomic particles is like the space between galaxies. From the right distance, the Magellanic Clouds are indistinguishable from the Milky Way. They are not, however, actually touching.
I'd be considerably more interested in the movement of positrons through, say, a wire made of anti-copper. :D
They didn't find antimatter, they found anti-protons. Matter is what happens when particles arrange themselves a certain way. A few stray protons doesn't constitute matter: neither do some stray anti-protons.
Furthermore, they've found a whopping 28 of them in two years' research. Even if they'd found 28 atoms of anti-hydrogen (which would require that each anti-proton also have a positron), the amount is utterly irrelevant in terms of power generation. 28 atoms of anti-hydrogen (which I point out again that this is not) wouldn't produce a reaction capable of running a AA-battery flashlight.
I believe that the BBC has fallen victim to sensationalism and/or ignorance. It's pretty much what I've come to expect from the world press.
Wow, 28 whole anti-protons.
So if we could move CERN into orbit (impossible), capture the anti-protons (impossible), and get 28 positrons to orbit them (impossible), we might wind up with 28 whole atoms of anti-hydrogen.
Once again, the world press displays its complete scientific ignorance. This ain't even antimatter, just some anti-protons.