CMEs cause the earths magnetic field to buckle and fold thereby inducing currents in conductors. But to get any kind of voltage/amps that affect anything, you need loops of wire hundreds of km long or more. ie power lines. Its nothing like an EMP.
No one wants your silly facts in this discussion. The only pertinent facts is that corporations are evil and care only about profits. GE crops are morally wrong.. for some reason. Anything or anyone promoting either is EVIL. Like shifty eyes evil.
You can't change the laws of physics or chemistry. We know these laws really well. Its not experience with life around us that has taught us these rules. But the Universe around us.
Anything that self replicates has such a profound influence on the local surroundings that it would be impossible to miss even if your not looking for it.
This is the applications installers fault. Properly installed the user never need know its java/C/C#/Lisp whatever you want. I have my java apps installed properly and most have no idea its java. Well pedantic UI nut jobs know its not native. But they are a minority.
On the flip side there are plenty of native apps that have all sorts of issues on Windows as well. Just look at any "install problems" section on a game forum.
C/C++ across multiple runtimes on *one* platform are relatively easy, though.
Bullshit. Sure it can be done. But its anything but relatively easy, unless you define relatively easy and sticking a porcupine up your arse. Of course i wouldn't say its all that much harder than java either.
I posted above about this. Didn't think of reversed hydrophobicity. Assumed none. But still there are big issues with temperature and well the fact that methane is just not a great solvent.
And well the claim that "it would be hard to recognize as life" is pure BS. Anything self replicating becomes so freaking dominate to the local conditions and chemistry it would be practically impossible to miss even if your not looking for it.
Which doesn't change the fact that he/she has a point. Steel mills in space? Really? Did GP even say that out loud and think about it for 3 seconds? I don't think so.
Re:Showed this on Cosmos, Sunday night.
on
Waves Spotted On Titan
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· Score: 5, Informative
I know this is always a popular theme. Life may not be as we know it. However proper analisis makes it less likely than water based carbon life for a number of reasons. Methane as the base solvent however works at lot better that the reaching silicon based life suggestions.
Quite simply you need some form of universal solvent to provide mobility to produced compounds. Water is just so hard to beat for this. Methane is not polar so at the very least "life" would not be able to use hydrophilic/Hydrophobic properties of base building blocks to control structure. Note this is not just used to fold proteins, but also the formation of bi lipid membranes. In fact it is postulated that the first stages of life was the spontaneous formation of such membranes.
Then there is the temperature problem. Liquid methane is cold. Really cold. A lot of reaction are just not going to happen at all at these temperatures. So having a viable metabolism would be challenging.
But carbon based life is certainly a lot more plausible in methane than these silly silicone based life forms everyone likes to suggest. For a start silicon does not form lots of stable compounds with itself and other elements. Unlike carbon. It does not oxides into easily removed/dissolved compounds. There is no effective solvent for most longer chain silicones..etc.
And the real kicker is that a planet that has silicon will also have carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen etc around as well. Temperatures where complex compounds/chains are stable but interesting reactions also happen tend to be close to where water is a liquid. Also don't forget just how much of the current elements are essential to life. Its often more than people think. http://umbbd.ethz.ch/periodic/
Bottom line is that water is practically magical in its solvent like properties and carbon is a freaking miracle. Its hard to see where they can be beat or anything else can come even remotely close.
But even carbon based life in water has vast scope to be very different to us. Even the hard sci fi gets this totally wrong (alien life will not be food that is for sure. Biocompatibility == 0). It may not be amino acids that are the blocks of whatever passes as proteins. Even if it is it will not be the same ones and almost definitely not 20 like we have. Instead of DNA is could be something quite different (but there will be some information store, we know that). There may not be any RNA like intermediary. In fact if alien life did look a lot like us, ie DNA (even if it was different bases) amino acids with some overlap of our own, it would be quite a strong case of common origin. There is simply no real evidence that there should be convergent evolution to the particular set of DNA/RNA/Amino acids we have here.
And it could be far simpler than even the simplest bacteria (which are bloody complicated). For example you could have something that just has plasmid like loops of "DNA" floating around with no structure, blobs of cell just buds off all the time. And by chance alone some of these buds has enough of the different plasmids to rinse and repeat.
But non carbon based, non water solvent life is definitely not nearly as likely as many people think. Too much sci fi, and not enough numbers. We have a very good understanding of chemistry and even an alternative metabolism hasn't even been suggested outside arm waving and doctor who level science.
Manual is a little strong. As in its not like this is not all done on computers. Its was dropped accounts mostly. ie the system would just not bill people. Other times it was failed transfers. All up it was like 11 bugs. Well we found 11 bugs and they were happy enough over a year later (another contract).
Financial system i have worked have never used floats. Its integers. Either just cents, or 10th of a cent. Or 2 integers for dollars and cents. There are rounding rules for this sort of thing.
Well i was on contract to fix bugs in a teleco accounting system where they could only find the missing cash every 3 months when a manual audit was done. Transaction volumes where a little over 1 Billion per year however, and it was only a million or so missing every 3 months.
Ever heard of barriers to entry? For example, deciding you pay too much for electricty and creating your own electric company just doesn't work. Too much captial needed. Its a huge barrier to entry.
You know i have won several best talks/presentations awards at some pretty big conferences. Sure i can use a computer to give a "great talk/whatever". But at what cost time wise? and for what? If after the 2 hours i have my students know and understand what they need to, how am i depriving them of anything.
Well we are given no credit for teaching. None. No matter how well or badly or how much of it we have to do. So you are simply going to get some crap teachers and teachers that just don't care. Your cutting into their research time, which we are evaluated on.
For the record we try and make it quite interactive.
Slashdot Mirror
CMEs cause the earths magnetic field to buckle and fold thereby inducing currents in conductors. But to get any kind of voltage/amps that affect anything, you need loops of wire hundreds of km long or more. ie power lines. Its nothing like an EMP.
No one wants your silly facts in this discussion. The only pertinent facts is that corporations are evil and care only about profits. GE crops are morally wrong.. for some reason. Anything or anyone promoting either is EVIL. Like shifty eyes evil.
Now take your facts elsewhere.
You can't change the laws of physics or chemistry. We know these laws really well. Its not experience with life around us that has taught us these rules. But the Universe around us.
Anything that self replicates has such a profound influence on the local surroundings that it would be impossible to miss even if your not looking for it.
Well its a lot easier to get one if you mention it in your grant. Most of my colleges do it all the time.
This is the applications installers fault. Properly installed the user never need know its java/C/C#/Lisp whatever you want. I have my java apps installed properly and most have no idea its java. Well pedantic UI nut jobs know its not native. But they are a minority.
On the flip side there are plenty of native apps that have all sorts of issues on Windows as well. Just look at any "install problems" section on a game forum.
C/C++ across multiple runtimes on *one* platform are relatively easy, though.
Bullshit. Sure it can be done. But its anything but relatively easy, unless you define relatively easy and sticking a porcupine up your arse. Of course i wouldn't say its all that much harder than java either.
So don't use freaking applets. It was a stupid idea to begin with.
And none of this is limited to java.
I posted above about this. Didn't think of reversed hydrophobicity. Assumed none. But still there are big issues with temperature and well the fact that methane is just not a great solvent.
And well the claim that "it would be hard to recognize as life" is pure BS. Anything self replicating becomes so freaking dominate to the local conditions and chemistry it would be practically impossible to miss even if your not looking for it.
Which doesn't change the fact that he/she has a point. Steel mills in space? Really? Did GP even say that out loud and think about it for 3 seconds? I don't think so.
I know this is always a popular theme. Life may not be as we know it. However proper analisis makes it less likely than water based carbon life for a number of reasons. Methane as the base solvent however works at lot better that the reaching silicon based life suggestions.
..etc.
Quite simply you need some form of universal solvent to provide mobility to produced compounds. Water is just so hard to beat for this. Methane is not polar so at the very least "life" would not be able to use hydrophilic/Hydrophobic properties of base building blocks to control structure. Note this is not just used to fold proteins, but also the formation of bi lipid membranes. In fact it is postulated that the first stages of life was the spontaneous formation of such membranes.
Then there is the temperature problem. Liquid methane is cold. Really cold. A lot of reaction are just not going to happen at all at these temperatures. So having a viable metabolism would be challenging.
But carbon based life is certainly a lot more plausible in methane than these silly silicone based life forms everyone likes to suggest. For a start silicon does not form lots of stable compounds with itself and other elements. Unlike carbon. It does not oxides into easily removed/dissolved compounds. There is no effective solvent for most longer chain silicones
And the real kicker is that a planet that has silicon will also have carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen etc around as well. Temperatures where complex compounds/chains are stable but interesting reactions also happen tend to be close to where water is a liquid. Also don't forget just how much of the current elements are essential to life. Its often more than people think. http://umbbd.ethz.ch/periodic/
Bottom line is that water is practically magical in its solvent like properties and carbon is a freaking miracle. Its hard to see where they can be beat or anything else can come even remotely close.
But even carbon based life in water has vast scope to be very different to us. Even the hard sci fi gets this totally wrong (alien life will not be food that is for sure. Biocompatibility == 0). It may not be amino acids that are the blocks of whatever passes as proteins. Even if it is it will not be the same ones and almost definitely not 20 like we have. Instead of DNA is could be something quite different (but there will be some information store, we know that). There may not be any RNA like intermediary. In fact if alien life did look a lot like us, ie DNA (even if it was different bases) amino acids with some overlap of our own, it would be quite a strong case of common origin. There is simply no real evidence that there should be convergent evolution to the particular set of DNA/RNA/Amino acids we have here.
And it could be far simpler than even the simplest bacteria (which are bloody complicated). For example you could have something that just has plasmid like loops of "DNA" floating around with no structure, blobs of cell just buds off all the time. And by chance alone some of these buds has enough of the different plasmids to rinse and repeat.
But non carbon based, non water solvent life is definitely not nearly as likely as many people think. Too much sci fi, and not enough numbers. We have a very good understanding of chemistry and even an alternative metabolism hasn't even been suggested outside arm waving and doctor who level science.
. . . .Annd Theen.
Childhood IQ tests, only done in the US, becomes a self fulfilling proficy because of what kind of education they get depends on that test.
Maybe we oughta just burn down all the churches
So your solution is another crusade?
This carries big implications in NSA's spying/QUANTUM program, which use U.S. control of the DNS system to exploit systems.
No it doesn't. These root servers provide public data to public requests. There is nothing secrete about how they work or what they hold.
So let's just classify everything, and then we won't have any whistleblowers anymore.
Which is more or less what has happened.
In addition to AC below. It is in fact easy to get a copy of "Mein Kampf" in Germany as well. I have even seen it in 2nd hand bookstores.
I think its in fact illegal in the jurisdiction i was working in.
Manual is a little strong. As in its not like this is not all done on computers. Its was dropped accounts mostly. ie the system would just not bill people. Other times it was failed transfers. All up it was like 11 bugs. Well we found 11 bugs and they were happy enough over a year later (another contract).
Financial system i have worked have never used floats. Its integers. Either just cents, or 10th of a cent. Or 2 integers for dollars and cents. There are rounding rules for this sort of thing.
Well i was on contract to fix bugs in a teleco accounting system where they could only find the missing cash every 3 months when a manual audit was done. Transaction volumes where a little over 1 Billion per year however, and it was only a million or so missing every 3 months.
Ever heard of barriers to entry? For example, deciding you pay too much for electricty and creating your own electric company just doesn't work. Too much captial needed. Its a huge barrier to entry.
You know i have won several best talks/presentations awards at some pretty big conferences. Sure i can use a computer to give a "great talk/whatever". But at what cost time wise? and for what? If after the 2 hours i have my students know and understand what they need to, how am i depriving them of anything.
Well we are given no credit for teaching. None. No matter how well or badly or how much of it we have to do. So you are simply going to get some crap teachers and teachers that just don't care. Your cutting into their research time, which we are evaluated on.
For the record we try and make it quite interactive.