Building a synthetic genome is NOT "mixed together chemical soups and watched life erupt out of it". It is painstakingly making polymers and weaving them together. And as your links themselves all say, what has come from it is most definitely NOT alive.
You're asking me to stop what I'm doing and schlep down to the library, where I'll probably have to get an interlibrary loan to get a copy? How is that helpful here?
Ok, so if in fact photons can travel at twice c (and I doubt Feynman was saying speeds go that fast) then a hundred light years, or two. How many habitable planets are there in a two hundred light year radius? And if by chance in that two hundred light year radius life erupted and evolved to the point of intelligence, how would they get here? The nearest star is four light years away! If your particles could go at twice lightspeed, two hundred light years away they would just now be getting the signals and it would take at least twice as long to travel here, as I doubt you're going to have matter travelling faster than light. here is a slashdot item I submitted last year, you probably saw it, about matter discovered travelling at near lightspeed.
First offense, not in relation to any other crime (I doubt she has an entirely clean record but has no felonies afaik). She spent only a few months there, went in last November and got out this past February.
They were pushing hard to get her to rat out her supplier. There are probably circumstances I'm not aware of, too.
We've found life in the freezing cold depths of the ocean where light doesn't penetrate. We've found life on the edges of volcanos.
And all of it is related, and all evolved from the same source. When life began there was no oxygen on the planet.
We've mixed together chemical soups and watched life erupt out of it.
If we have, this is the first I've heard of it. Have you any reputable links?
Obviously, life isn't a unique and special thing, but something that naturally erupts into existence all over the place.
Again, as far as we know it only started once on this planet, and although there may be or have been life on Mars or Europa we have never found proof of it. The only place we've ever found hints of life are right here.
Therefore, there must be life all over the universe, and not just here on Earth.
Your conclusion is based on a false premise, but despite that I think it highly unlikely that in the vast reaches of our galaxy, let alone the unimaginably huge number of planets in the universe, that we are alone. If life arose independantly here from non-life, it must have risen independantly elsewhere. But if it did, it is absurdly improbable that it would look anything like us.
The universe doesn't tend towards entropy. It tends towards life. We are walking, talking evidence of this fact.
I don't know, I've seen alzheimers patients and that's not how I would want to go out. He doesn't have to have alsheimers or schitzophrenia to be a crackpot.
True, there's a huge variety of species on our planet that look completely different to humans, but how many of them have ever built anything beyond a simple structure to live in?
That's an additional argument against space aliens. Life is rare; it only appeared once in our solar system that we know of. Intelligent life is even more rare. Like you say, there is only one intelligent species we know of.
Why would five, rather than four or six, fingers be required for intelligence? Or feet like ours, rather than feet like birds?
Of the four earth species that farm, only one is a mammal. The other three are insects.
I don't buy the "space alien" story for the simple reason that the "Area 51" aliens look too much like us. Bipedal, five fingers, five toes, two eyes, one two holed nose, one mouth. Look at the diversity of life on earth, with hooved animals, pipedaal animals with feathers, squids, six legged insects and eight legged spiders, no legged snakes. And all of these creatures presumably evolved from the first earthly protolife, as we've never seen life sponaneously appear since, nor have we been able to cause it to spontaneously appear.
Plus, how would they have found us? Our radio waves are incredibly weak. Even nuclear blasts are weak on a cosmic scale, and nobody farther than fifty light years away could have detected them yet.
If in fact they are aliens, they must be time aliens, not space aliens; a species that evolved from humans and travelled through time to do a bit of archaeology. Considering that humans have only been here a hundred thousand years (and look at how we have progressed since), imagine what our descendants ten million years in the future will be like? We will be less than chimpanses by comparison.
I can believe time travel before I believe faster than light travel.
It's worse than that; it uses the old fashioned red-blue glasses from the 1950s ('40s?) rather than the newer polarized glasses from the '80s (70s?). Of course, the polarized glasses will only work on a projected image so it's a good thing they used the old method.
You're almost as old as my daughters. Thanks for reminding me of my geezerhood, you insensitive clod!
I don't know if it's their server from the slashdot effect, but the first link from the summary takes me to a page with little but google ads, a link to the story (which just reloads the page) and a link to a list of other stories by the author. It is completely useless.
The second link in the summary leads to the NASA site, and it actually has the pictures. They're (of course) the old fashioned red/blue stereo pictures that you can use in a monitor or TV set, and not the newer polarized stereo glasses.
Do you really think they'd have a hard time passing a law against murder? I don't. Laws like that would be easily relegislated. There are no term limits on Congress or the Senate.
A "make this permanent" would be a Constitutional amendment. That requires 2/3ds of Congress and teh Senate and 2/3ds of the states approval. I guess it would likely tale a Constitutional amendment to make laws expire.
A pure democracy would not need legislators; any citizen would be able to introduce a bill, and if his fellow voters approved it it would become law.
A democratic republic would have legislators, but the law wouldn't pass without a popular vote.
Ours is a republic with democratically elected legislators.
Sometimes the lesser funded candidate does win, but it's rare. Here in Illinois when the now incarcerated George Ryan ran for Governor, he barely beat his opponent in the polls despite having outspent him ten to one. If he'd only spent twice as much instead of ten times as much he likely would have lost.
If you do a legitimate study on the effects of different strains of marijuana, and control the genetics by growing the pot yourself, without all the impossible to get paperwork and permissions, you're going to prison.
Why should these guys be any different? In the case of the reefer nobody's hared, in these guys' cases they invaded innocent people's privacy. Not only were their actions illegal, they were highly unethical.
he'll be doing it in maximum security "Pound me in the ass" prison with the real bad dudes
No, he'll be in maximum security prison with the geriatric former Illinois Governor George Ryan and a bunch of dopers and dope dealers. The violent ones manage to stay on the streets, or get sentenced to county jail for short periods of time.
It depends on the information. Can I have your Social Security number, your bank account number and debit card PIN number? You don't even wat your name posted; not even your slashdot user name!
Sharing SOME knowedge is good, sharing other knowledge is bad. Your anonymous cries of slashdot hypocricy ring hollow.
That's assuming they catch him. If they do, he won't be able to walk away because it won't be minimum security. He'll be found guilty of additional crimes, and his wife (if caught) will be sent to prison as well.
If you're in the US, you're blissfully ignorant of the reality of the situation. My friend Linda was sent to Dwight Correctional Center, a maximum security hellhole, for non-violent drug posesssion. Not sales, mind you, but nonviolent posession for personal use.
OTOH Lance Carter, a violent asshole who was dishonorably discharged from the Marines who I avoid when possible, broke into a man's home and tried to murder him with a large butcher knife. He spent two weeks in the Sangamon County Jail for home invasion.
I was going to link the newspaper article about his arrest, but it appears they've removed it. It's quoted in this NSFW journal about the incident.
Slashdot Mirror
Whoda' thunk? Aliens get drunk!
You can learn from books. School is for getting the piece of paper that attests to the fact that you've learned, otherwise why would they need tests?
Building a synthetic genome is NOT "mixed together chemical soups and watched life erupt out of it". It is painstakingly making polymers and weaving them together. And as your links themselves all say, what has come from it is most definitely NOT alive.
Let me ask some mice and dolphins and I'll get back to you on that.
You're asking me to stop what I'm doing and schlep down to the library, where I'll probably have to get an interlibrary loan to get a copy? How is that helpful here?
Ok, so if in fact photons can travel at twice c (and I doubt Feynman was saying speeds go that fast) then a hundred light years, or two. How many habitable planets are there in a two hundred light year radius? And if by chance in that two hundred light year radius life erupted and evolved to the point of intelligence, how would they get here? The nearest star is four light years away! If your particles could go at twice lightspeed, two hundred light years away they would just now be getting the signals and it would take at least twice as long to travel here, as I doubt you're going to have matter travelling faster than light. here is a slashdot item I submitted last year, you probably saw it, about matter discovered travelling at near lightspeed.
First offense, not in relation to any other crime (I doubt she has an entirely clean record but has no felonies afaik). She spent only a few months there, went in last November and got out this past February.
They were pushing hard to get her to rat out her supplier. There are probably circumstances I'm not aware of, too.
Anyone who can get here can probably find here.
I got here and I can't!
We've found life in the freezing cold depths of the ocean where light doesn't penetrate. We've found life on the edges of volcanos.
And all of it is related, and all evolved from the same source. When life began there was no oxygen on the planet.
We've mixed together chemical soups and watched life erupt out of it.
If we have, this is the first I've heard of it. Have you any reputable links?
Obviously, life isn't a unique and special thing, but something that naturally erupts into existence all over the place.
Again, as far as we know it only started once on this planet, and although there may be or have been life on Mars or Europa we have never found proof of it. The only place we've ever found hints of life are right here.
Therefore, there must be life all over the universe, and not just here on Earth.
Your conclusion is based on a false premise, but despite that I think it highly unlikely that in the vast reaches of our galaxy, let alone the unimaginably huge number of planets in the universe, that we are alone. If life arose independantly here from non-life, it must have risen independantly elsewhere. But if it did, it is absurdly improbable that it would look anything like us.
The universe doesn't tend towards entropy. It tends towards life. We are walking, talking evidence of this fact.
Life is part of entropy.
I don't know, I've seen alzheimers patients and that's not how I would want to go out. He doesn't have to have alsheimers or schitzophrenia to be a crackpot.
True, there's a huge variety of species on our planet that look completely different to humans, but how many of them have ever built anything beyond a simple structure to live in?
That's an additional argument against space aliens. Life is rare; it only appeared once in our solar system that we know of. Intelligent life is even more rare. Like you say, there is only one intelligent species we know of.
Why would five, rather than four or six, fingers be required for intelligence? Or feet like ours, rather than feet like birds?
Of the four earth species that farm, only one is a mammal. The other three are insects.
I would imagine it would be pretty hard to walk on the moon and NOT have a religious experience.
He's my dad's age. My dad shows no sign whatever of mental unfitness. Neither does my drinking buddy Ralph, who's 86.
If he were thirty you would probably blame drugs.
What source? I saw no links, only the name of the book "Freakonomics".
I don't buy the "space alien" story for the simple reason that the "Area 51" aliens look too much like us. Bipedal, five fingers, five toes, two eyes, one two holed nose, one mouth. Look at the diversity of life on earth, with hooved animals, pipedaal animals with feathers, squids, six legged insects and eight legged spiders, no legged snakes. And all of these creatures presumably evolved from the first earthly protolife, as we've never seen life sponaneously appear since, nor have we been able to cause it to spontaneously appear.
Plus, how would they have found us? Our radio waves are incredibly weak. Even nuclear blasts are weak on a cosmic scale, and nobody farther than fifty light years away could have detected them yet.
If in fact they are aliens, they must be time aliens, not space aliens; a species that evolved from humans and travelled through time to do a bit of archaeology. Considering that humans have only been here a hundred thousand years (and look at how we have progressed since), imagine what our descendants ten million years in the future will be like? We will be less than chimpanses by comparison.
I can believe time travel before I believe faster than light travel.
It's worse than that; it uses the old fashioned red-blue glasses from the 1950s ('40s?) rather than the newer polarized glasses from the '80s (70s?). Of course, the polarized glasses will only work on a projected image so it's a good thing they used the old method.
You're almost as old as my daughters. Thanks for reminding me of my geezerhood, you insensitive clod!
I don't know if it's their server from the slashdot effect, but the first link from the summary takes me to a page with little but google ads, a link to the story (which just reloads the page) and a link to a list of other stories by the author. It is completely useless.
The second link in the summary leads to the NASA site, and it actually has the pictures. They're (of course) the old fashioned red/blue stereo pictures that you can use in a monitor or TV set, and not the newer polarized stereo glasses.
We have the best legislators money can buy!
For example, murder
Do you really think they'd have a hard time passing a law against murder? I don't. Laws like that would be easily relegislated. There are no term limits on Congress or the Senate.
A "make this permanent" would be a Constitutional amendment. That requires 2/3ds of Congress and teh Senate and 2/3ds of the states approval. I guess it would likely tale a Constitutional amendment to make laws expire.
A pure democracy would not need legislators; any citizen would be able to introduce a bill, and if his fellow voters approved it it would become law.
A democratic republic would have legislators, but the law wouldn't pass without a popular vote.
Ours is a republic with democratically elected legislators.
Sometimes the lesser funded candidate does win, but it's rare. Here in Illinois when the now incarcerated George Ryan ran for Governor, he barely beat his opponent in the polls despite having outspent him ten to one. If he'd only spent twice as much instead of ten times as much he likely would have lost.
If you do a legitimate study on the effects of different strains of marijuana, and control the genetics by growing the pot yourself, without all the impossible to get paperwork and permissions, you're going to prison.
Why should these guys be any different? In the case of the reefer nobody's hared, in these guys' cases they invaded innocent people's privacy. Not only were their actions illegal, they were highly unethical.
he'll be doing it in maximum security "Pound me in the ass" prison with the real bad dudes
No, he'll be in maximum security prison with the geriatric former Illinois Governor George Ryan and a bunch of dopers and dope dealers. The violent ones manage to stay on the streets, or get sentenced to county jail for short periods of time.
Most US prisoners are in there for drugs.
It depends on the information. Can I have your Social Security number, your bank account number and debit card PIN number? You don't even wat your name posted; not even your slashdot user name!
Sharing SOME knowedge is good, sharing other knowledge is bad. Your anonymous cries of slashdot hypocricy ring hollow.
That's assuming they catch him. If they do, he won't be able to walk away because it won't be minimum security. He'll be found guilty of additional crimes, and his wife (if caught) will be sent to prison as well.
They're probably both in Mexico by now.
If you're in the US, you're blissfully ignorant of the reality of the situation. My friend Linda was sent to Dwight Correctional Center, a maximum security hellhole, for non-violent drug posesssion. Not sales, mind you, but nonviolent posession for personal use.
OTOH Lance Carter, a violent asshole who was dishonorably discharged from the Marines who I avoid when possible, broke into a man's home and tried to murder him with a large butcher knife. He spent two weeks in the Sangamon County Jail for home invasion.
I was going to link the newspaper article about his arrest, but it appears they've removed it. It's quoted in this NSFW journal about the incident.