tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post7548365395431742446..comments2024-03-28T23:39:08.616-07:00Comments on CONTRARY BRIN: Opportunities and dangers in Space! (If we are even allowed to get out there.)David Brinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comBlogger124125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-28595338734377562432020-10-07T13:03:36.311-07:002020-10-07T13:03:36.311-07:00Mycket informativt och imponerande inlägg som du h...Mycket informativt och imponerande inlägg som du har skrivit, detta är ganska intressant och jag har gått igenom det helt, här är hur jag fick tillbaka min älskare med hjälp av Dr Obodo för mer info (templeofanswer@hotmail.co.uk, +234 8155 42548- 1)Raj Chandrakanthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16079059561291035826noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-41330493634814250142018-01-30T13:49:42.181-08:002018-01-30T13:49:42.181-08:00The Martian side-slips many issues. The force of t...The Martian side-slips many issues. The force of the sandstorm is the one everyone talks about. But they'd never have landed without an In Situ water production facility melting and refining ice from below. And that would hence solve his water problem. And he's need TONS of water to leach poisons out of Martian soil. But ah, the drama needed all this!<br /><br />onward<br /><br />onward<br /><br />David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-32370784039437221272018-01-30T13:13:29.223-08:002018-01-30T13:13:29.223-08:00Re: "Bubbles"
Aside: I first saw that V...Re: "Bubbles"<br /><br />Aside: I first saw that Voynich story on a fringe right-wing site I regularly read. So blah, Locumbubble.<br /><br />--<br /><br />AF Rey and Winter7,<br />Re: Solutions to Fermi's Paradox<br /><br />The problem with those explanations are that they must apply to all possible alien civilisations. It only takes one exception (if interstellar colonisation is possible) or a small percentage (if only radio communication is possible) for it not to work.<br /><br />Oligarchs aren't incompatible with grand projects, quite the contrary; hence a planetary emperor is the sort of thing that would <i>enable</i> the first interstellar colony. (And escaping from him is what seeds all the rest.) Likewise, religious proselytising would be sufficient to motivate obsessive attempts to contact other civilisations. (Some religions might forbid it, of course, but others would be driven to Deliver Pamphlets To The Unbelievers. You have to explain the latter, not just mention the possibility of the former.)<br /><br />If there are so few civilisations that individual reasons dominate (a particular civilisation goes stagnant because...) then those explanations aren't really relevant to Fermi Paradox. The "solution" is instead the answer to the question of why they are so rare in the first place.Paul451https://www.blogger.com/profile/12119086761190994938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-7976307314038536342018-01-30T12:56:38.225-08:002018-01-30T12:56:38.225-08:00This would have fit nicely with the overlapping la...This would have fit nicely with the overlapping language and AI discussion yesterday: <a href="https://www.ualberta.ca/science/science-news/2018/january/ai-used-to-decipher-ancient-manuscript" rel="nofollow">Using AI to uncover ancient mysteries</a><br /><br />AI researchers from Uni.Alberta claim to have (mostly) translated the legendary 15th century <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript" rel="nofollow">Voynich manuscript</a>.<br /><br />They fed a language AI on 400 languages, asked it to identify what language is being used in the Voynich manuscript. It said Hebrew. So then they tried to turn the words into Hebrew words, and found they'd been coded as an <a href="https://www.ualberta.ca/science/science-news/2018/january/ai-used-to-decipher-ancient-manuscript" rel="nofollow">alphagram</a>. (eehrW eht eelrtts in aceh dorw aer aadegnrr in aaabcehillpt deorr.)<br /><br />They couldn't find a scholar in ancient Hebrew who would work with them, so they just fed the resulting sentences into Google-translate. The sentences they show as examples are still a bit weird, but are readable. I can't find the translated text, though, so it's hard to judge whether they've cracked it, or just created patterns out of random nonsense by feeding it through pattern making machines.Paul451https://www.blogger.com/profile/12119086761190994938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-9077754942407111302018-01-30T11:59:42.050-08:002018-01-30T11:59:42.050-08:00Explaining some apparent cosmic fact according to ...Explaining some apparent cosmic fact according to one's pet political peeve doesn't seem very objective or scientific. Just say we don't know, and there's not enough evidence to make any claims, nor to justify restricting people who have a religious need to beam messages at the stars. I don't find this feudalism explanation plausible; it's a bit like blaming Trump for the "Great Silence". Maybe the universe is devoid of intelligent life, or maybe galactic colonization just isn't technically feasible after all. Are these obvious explanations so terrifying that we have to construct dubious explanations more in line with your Star Trek mythology?Treebeardnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-37050964303275157272018-01-30T11:26:58.888-08:002018-01-30T11:26:58.888-08:00AF Rey:
Most likely, the great silence in the uni...AF Rey:<br /><br />Most likely, the great silence in the universe is caused because it is very difficult for all intelligent life forms to find a way to neutralize the oligarchies. Probably the oligarchs preferred to destroy their worlds, rather than allow the freedom of their slaves. <br />When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movements become headlong - faster and faster and faster. They put aside all thoughts of obstacles and forget the precipice does not show itself to the man in a blind rush until it's too late.<br /><br />Winter 7Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-23043321973878984912018-01-30T10:43:09.937-08:002018-01-30T10:43:09.937-08:00Thinking of the Oort cloud civilization described ... Thinking of the Oort cloud civilization described in Michael Swanwick's "Vacuum Flowers", once the tools for survival out there were worked out, a lot of the Galaxy would open up, and to people with only dimming memories of the inner Worlds, and little or no need of them.Tim H.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-8618969117978771212018-01-30T10:10:37.289-08:002018-01-30T10:10:37.289-08:00Citing the Fermi Paradox, "filterists" c...<i> Citing the Fermi Paradox, "filterists" claim that technology is empowering individuals & small groups to wreak havoc. Thus, other species out there either clamp down, forbidding technology and democracy… or else some lone tech-empowered maniac makes them extinct. Either way, no one goes out to the stars.</i><br /><br />Hmmm...I wonder if this is a somewhat human-centric problem.<br /><br />Although "survival of the fittest" is probably a universal factor of evolution, perhaps those species that are more cooperative than us (e.g. ants and other social insects) are the ones who have made star-spanning civilizations.<br /><br />And they know better than to make contact with individualistic civilizations who will eventually destroy themselves anyway.A.F. Reynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-31984620063430753752018-01-30T08:50:52.790-08:002018-01-30T08:50:52.790-08:00Jim Wright, over at Stonekettle, breaks down why t...Jim Wright, over at Stonekettle, breaks down why the memo is 'fake news' pretty succinctly. It's one step removed from 'One Weird Trick -- the cable companies hate this!' popup ads. There's too much if-then-else that fails the sniff check.TheMadLibrariannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-63511999012141974232018-01-30T08:18:58.349-08:002018-01-30T08:18:58.349-08:00@Winter 7
Excuse me. I'm going to an issue.
...@Winter 7<br /><br /><i>Excuse me. I'm going to an issue.</i><br /><br />Me too.Twomindsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-62129645979654255252018-01-30T08:00:02.445-08:002018-01-30T08:00:02.445-08:00Twominds:
If there are no non-toxic lands, it will...<br />Twominds:<br />If there are no non-toxic lands, it will be necessary to grind non-toxic rocks of Mars. I do not think Mars was always toxic. But I think that at a certain depth there must be non-toxic soil somewhere. You just have to look for those places, dig and extract. Remote-controlled vehicles should be doing this work in advance. I have always found it an error that NASA does not send machines with better capacity to dig.<br /><br />Winter 7<br />Excuse me. I'm going to an issue.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-71827264139006387542018-01-30T07:59:00.653-08:002018-01-30T07:59:00.653-08:00Well, what say you now Tacitus? At least 4 people ...Well, what say you now Tacitus? At least 4 people in oversight positions of the FBI's investigation into the Trump / Russia affair have been fired or otherwise gotten rid of by Trump and his lackies. The most recent being the last non Trump flunky senior FBI person overseeing the Mueller investigation.<br /><br />And how about that cute little Republican secret committee that ginned up a completely bullshit memo to try and discredit FBI personal and which is going to be released to the public even though it is based on secret information which may put sources in danger? And the Republicans haven't allowed the justice department or the FBI to review the document, not even to vet it for security issues even though that is SOP? How do you rate this compared to the Hillary E-mail bullshit?<br /><br />I'd be curious, in a morbid way, to read your rationalizations about how us non-Republicans are being irrational or hyperbolic, about how the Trump administration and Republican party behavior is just how politics is done and the other side does it too.<br /><br />And, I may have missed LarryHart and Alfred Differ talking about this recently, but, Alfred? What do you think at this point? Are you willing to categorize the Trump administration as illegitimate yet? If your answer is no I can only suggest that your standards are way too lenient. I'd also suggest adding the Republican Party leadership (at a minimum) to the illegitimate list. They are breaking all the rules and if they are given much more rope they won't hang themselves but they are damn likely to hang a bunch of us.Darrell Ehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14054311762477388637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-51884176937850574522018-01-30T07:47:44.926-08:002018-01-30T07:47:44.926-08:00@Winter 7
In the case of The Martian, the expedit...@Winter 7<br /><br />In the case of The Martian, the expedition wasn't a colonization, so no seeds.<br /><br />IIRC, that H2O2 was so pervasive in Martian soils became clear only after Weir wrote his book. So Andy had a lot on his plate (figuratively), but not that.Twomindsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-21115297343793993482018-01-30T07:42:40.535-08:002018-01-30T07:42:40.535-08:00
Twominds
If I were the leader of an expedition ...<br /><br /> Twominds<br />If I were the leader of an expedition of colonists on Mars, I would carry all kinds of seeds. I would plant them in different greenhouses. I would use a mixture of non-toxic Martian soil, mixed with compost made with organic waste.<br />But I wonder. What type of filters will be necessary to use in the roofs of the greenhouses?<br />It is possible to use any vitrified material with sand from Mars, to make the greenhouse panels, but it will be necessary to use internal filters for radiation, I suppose. Unless magnetic shields are used on the greenhouses. It would be cheaper to wear protective suits and put filters in the greenhouses. The rest of the base can be in underground tubes.<br />Seeds that can grow on Mars, are still used. I suppose that the Kilopower of NASA can permanently provide a suitable temperature to the greenhouse, but it remains to be determined which plants can survive in the lands of Mars. I hope that the remote control vehicles on Mars have already identified many areas with different non-toxic land types. It will probably be necessary for settlers to get different types of land and mix them in certain quantities to experiment and see which is better for terrestrial plants.<br /><br />Winter 7Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-8492919059016391202018-01-30T07:19:39.665-08:002018-01-30T07:19:39.665-08:00The following scientific study explains the strang...The following scientific study explains the strange appearance of Donald trump. Obviously, Donald Trump is seeking immortality by saturating himself with mole DNA.<br /><br />This is the link:<br /><br />https://phys.org/news/2018-01-naked-mole-rat-defy-gompertz.html?utm_source=menu&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=item-menu<br /><br />Winter 7<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-42580292710860767142018-01-30T07:01:42.768-08:002018-01-30T07:01:42.768-08:00@TheMadLibrarian
The fresh potatoes were clearly...@TheMadLibrarian <br /><br />The fresh potatoes were clearly a plot device (is that the right phrase?) to give Andy access to food he could grow. I have no problem with it.<br /><br />I had a harder time with the storm at the beginning: a Martian storm wouldn't have enough power behind it to create the emergency evacuation.Twomindsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-58307973758636745572018-01-30T06:27:28.957-08:002018-01-30T06:27:28.957-08:00The false equivalency that our ranch hand faker us...The false equivalency that our ranch hand faker used a while back does bring to mind an issue that we are probably all aware of but easily forget. It's very easy to confuse nomenclature. In his case he was probably doing it deliberately, though it can be difficult to tell which of his distortions are deliberate dishonesty and which are genuine delusions or sheer oink-headed stupidity. In that case the word /law/ has a very different, though analogous, meaning in science than it has in common parlance. I have never liked the fact that physicists and chemists insist on using that word, specifically because it garbles rather than improves communication with the non-scientific public. Scientists are trained to try to be as clear as possible in their communication, which is why they have to have so much jargon. The ironic effect of all that jargon is that no one understands them who doesn't have the same scientific education. It's a bit of a quandary.<br /><br />Psychology may be the worst (pseudo) science where this is concerned. Clinical depression, for example, has been called the common cold of psychiatric disorders, but in psychiatric terms /depression/ does not mean what it means to ordinary people. To most people, depression is what happens when your dog dies and you get bummed out for a little while. Depression is something you get over. Clinical depression is not something you get over. About a third of people who have it are called "treatment resistant" meaning that even with medication and a variety of different therapies they still don't get over it. The word refers to the fact that the nervous system shows depressed activity, which is manifested in lethargy, low mood, suicidal ideation, but clinical depression also has phases characterized by dramatic rage. At its lowest level clinical depression makes people so lethargic they aren't feeling "down" because they aren't feeling much of anything (like advanced Parkinson's disease, which is a clue to the role of dopamine imbalance). Because of this nomenclature problem, if a doctor tells an employer or a family member that someone is suffering from depression, the typical response is "Just get over it, grow up, be a man" - your typical conservative victim blaming. The common response from the public not only fails to acknowledge that the patient physically can't "get over it," but actually makes the condition worse by subjecting them to both scorn and often dire consequences for things they have no control over.<br /><br />I don't know if anyone here has a psychology background, but if someone does I would love to hear suggestions for a better name. There are a number of people here who have physics and chemistry backgrounds who might throw out suggestions for a better term than /law/. It would be better if any of those people have connections to scientific societies that could potentially influence nomenclature.Paul SBnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-61432302700423601302018-01-30T06:18:08.452-08:002018-01-30T06:18:08.452-08:00I can't believe that I have to define a litera...<br />I can't believe that I have to define a literary conceit like Andy Weir's magical 'Thanksgiving (Raw, Refrigerated, yet Viable) Potatoes' that defy spoilage for our Mad_Librarian, so I will only encourage her to put a few raw potatoes in her frig for next Thanksgiving. Bon Appetite!!<br /><br />And, our poor flaming socialist TCB who remains convinced that all right-wing conservatives are Anti-Semites (because the 'Nazi' national socialists, who he assumes to be right-wing, killed 6 million) despite the fact that the Soviet socialists (his good friends who opposed the Nazis) executed more than 60 million.<br /><br />Maybe TCB & Zepp can tell us what they call an Anti-Semite who just hates Right-wing Jews?<br /><br />Other people "who insist on trying to use knowledge as a bludgeon to try to force people to bow down to (them)" tend to gravitate toward public education where they become (by default) the smartest people in the room, even though they openly profess how they love themselves some little children too.<br /><br />So entrenched in your little dwarfish bubbles are most of you that no one could ever convince you that 88% of the world does not think, believe or reason as you attempt to do.<br /><br /><br />Bestlocumranchnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-37354704104658124802018-01-30T06:13:20.287-08:002018-01-30T06:13:20.287-08:00TCB wrote: "Props for a solid Ancient Rome-th...TCB wrote: "Props for a solid Ancient Rome-themed pun. Sometimes we allow ourselves to be a little too saturnine and not jovial enough, when our mercurial society venerates the martial lunacy of the plutocrats."<br /><br />Quite a systematic display of worldly humour there...<br />Zepp Jamiesonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16261339498383415026noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-58019801973671715692018-01-30T06:09:13.481-08:002018-01-30T06:09:13.481-08:00Paul SB:
I haven't read him, and my list of b...Paul SB:<br /><i><br />I haven't read him, and my list of books I haven't read but probably should stretches far beyond the realm of possibility for this mortal coil.<br /></i><br /><br />That's probably the big difference between the youthful feeling of immortality and the middle-age recognition that life has an ending. Most teenagers probably don't literally believe as a statement of fact that they will live forever. What they do believe (or feel, or "know") is that there is plenty of time for doing whatever they have in mind.<br /><br />Middle-age is probably defined by the point at which you understand that you won't have time for everything on your bucket list. Old age is when "finding out what happens on next week's episode" is problematic.<br />LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-43587770991705318732018-01-30T06:08:02.735-08:002018-01-30T06:08:02.735-08:00BTW Alfred, what's wrong with Vince Lombardi? ...BTW Alfred, what's wrong with Vince Lombardi? I'm not a football fan at all. The idea of watching a bunch huge muscular guys in really tight pants jumping on each other never appealed to me, but I do respect a person who was good at what he did and accumulated some wisdom in the process.Paul SBnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-24871714514938097102018-01-30T04:48:36.339-08:002018-01-30T04:48:36.339-08:00Alfred,
Where you wrote this:
"I doubt they...Alfred,<br /><br />Where you wrote this:<br /><br />"I doubt they’ve all read Hayek in depth, but there isn’t any point to whipping people with the fact that I have. I’m here to learn, not to demonstrate that I’m right. Ahem... mostly... at least I like to think so... don't ruin my illusion please. 8)"<br /><br />you seem to be falling into the old and useless stereotype of the effete intellectual snob - which is to say, the idea that if a person shows intelligence it just means they are showing off and trying to put others down. There are certainly some people like this, about as many a self-made millionaires who came about their fortunes honestly, pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. That is to say, there are enough of them to show that such people exist, and they are spoken about often, but they are not representative of the majority by any stretch of the imagination. <br /><br />Humans are supremely social animals, regardless of America's antisocial culture. It is quite natural for people to want to share knowledge. Sure, there are ass-wipes like Locum who insist on trying to use knowledge as a bludgeon to try to force people to bow down to him, and you can see how well he performs there, but most people get a good oxytocin rush just from sharing what they know with others. So by all means, when someone brings up Hayek, explain away. I haven't read him, and my list of books I haven't read but probably should stretches far beyond the realm of possibility for this mortal coil. That's probably not a unique condition, so don't feel shy about giving us the skinny about Hayek or anyone/anything else you think is valuable. The social arena will have its say about what is or is not valuable, but you don't know how that will pan out until you make the attempt.<br /><br />Or as Dory might sing, "Just keep typing ..." Paul SBnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-32738779757134428762018-01-30T04:34:27.121-08:002018-01-30T04:34:27.121-08:00Hey Crazy Bibliophile,
We're all guilty of it...Hey Crazy Bibliophile,<br /><br />We're all guilty of it. Sometimes the crap these maroons spew is so stupid it's hard not to, so don't palm that face too hard. : ]Paul SBnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-13588564218711135842018-01-29T23:46:05.685-08:002018-01-29T23:46:05.685-08:00We will all be centaurs at some point. Train them ...We will all be centaurs at some point. Train them to do stuff and there will be more stuff they can't do yet... at least until they start deciding what is worth doing. By then I hope to retire on my investments in them. 8)Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-11146486370386984582018-01-29T23:25:19.101-08:002018-01-29T23:25:19.101-08:00My job has me currently training a machine intelli...My job has me currently training a machine intelligence to do part of my job. I am well aware I'm training my replacement but you know something? It'll take several years for it to be fully trained and I've been one of the people they rely on to do things they need done. So I suspect I'd be kept on. In theory. After all, they might very well have the machine trained well enough that it can compensate for new projects. ;) <br /><br />Rob H.Acacia H.https://www.blogger.com/profile/07678539067303911329noreply@blogger.com