Mr Monkeybat

Why would you assume something shaped like an octopus would have to be a water creature?

Without the support of a skeleton a creature like that would have a hard time getting large and moving on land, I probably should of inserted a quote because I think that was a response to the previous message about the possibilities of intelligence in sea creatures, so I was mainly pointing out the difficulties of developing technology in water.

Something like an Octopus could evolve intelligence but try lighting a fire underwater, there is not even many sticks to put your sharpened stone on, I don't see that going very far technology wise. Dolphins, and Ravens can pass intelligence tests Chimps cannot and Elephants never forget, so high intelligence does not seem that rare, but only one creature had the right size and limb proportions to become spear chuckers and fire tenders. A tentical hand without bones would be a bit floppy, less dexterous and strong. Insect like exoskeletons I am told dont scale up very well to larger sizes, so the humanoid camp has a few points. But you could also have six limbed creatures kind of like a centaur, or a therapod style biped with a big tail. Breathing and feeding could be don from separate tubes, or maybe combined with excretion like the sea pig. Communication could be entirely visual like in squid or use gesture or verbal like humans.

Interesting. Even though this goes into the direction of my thesis, I still have some concerns:

How sensitive are our detectors?

Would we really be able to to detect them?

The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide-field_Infrared_Survey_Explorer has surveyed the entire sky. "WISE was not able to detect Kuiper belt objects, as their temperature is too low.^[17] It was able to detect any objects warmer than 70–100 Kelvins." I presume these habitats are supposed to be quite large. Perhaps uploaded robots could operate at lower temperatures if they use solid lubricants in there hinges like graphite. But even robots need a power source. The minimum size of a fusion reactor according to the late Bussard's optimistic Polywell designs is 100 megawatts not many fission reactors smaller than that either. Admittedly I would have to do more research to calculate at what distance 100 megawatts of infrared is visible. According to http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacewardetect.php the maneuvering thrusters on the space shuttle would be visible in the asteroid belt, most of the maths on his website seems sound.

Y

If the minerals are somehow the same in any habitable solar system, why should you (as an extraterrestrial) pick them up from another solar system instead of the one you are living in?

The same reason people and animals always migrate to new territory. Because the system you are living in is already settled so all its minerals are already owned by someone. This is of course assuming that interstellar travel is a viable option, I have not ruled out the other answer Jevon's paradox that people mainly just stay stuck on their home worlds maybe reverting to the Iron Age once fossil fuels run out.

I'm not sure what you mean by lack of evidence that any asteroids have been mined, how many have we really looked at closely? Some odd groves and such have been seen on the few we have looked at closely. I have my doubts about the need to mine asteroids for metals, I suggest that advanced civilizations would use mostly carbon to build their structures not metals. I'm sure metals would be needed but we tend to think of metals as the main ingredient in anything large we build but carbon fibers and nanotubes are superior in almost all ways to metal in building large scale structures, in zero G this advantage would be greatly magnified.

They look like they are covered by natural craters to me. 75% of asteroids are carbon rich, spectrographic observations of asteroids don't seem to indicate they have been selectively depleted of any element including carbon. Small planetoids like the Moon, Ganymede, Callisto etc could be easier to mine that asteroids because a little gravity can make many operations easier. I think these bodies have been observed enough to rule out artificial structures or earth moving on them.

The power problem is valid, without a power source there can be no ort cloud colonies... I have my doubts that such civilizations would consume all resources before moving on, the resources we are talking about is a great deal more vast than what we are used to dealing with, the idea that a civilization could or would colonise every star system in the galaxy in a few million years is based on the old idea that they would colonise planets, the ort cloud offers a few orders of magnitude more space and resources.

With a Conservative doubling time of 100 years it would only take 10,000 years for the human population equal the weight of the entire galaxy stars and all. It does not mater how vast the absolute size is, the exponential function will gobble it all up. 100 years is very conservative drop some people off on a planet seeded with life and isolated from Earths consumerism they will likely reproduce like the Amish doubling less than every 20 years. 5 doublings every century means your population is multiplied by 32 each century and 1024 every over century, 15 orders of magnitude every millennium. Those Women with a genetic predisposition to maximize their reproduction despite the temptations of consumerism will inevitably become a larger and larger section of humanity in the future by the almost tautological Darwinian fact that those that are better at reproducing become more numerous over time.

Obviously it unlikely that we begin digesting stars, we will presumably also be limited by the time it takes to cross interstellar space. Ignoring warp drives in a Von Nueman scenario a Daedalus type probe takes 80 years to come to a halt at the nearest star, give the robots a blind guess of one century to build all the necessary factories and robots to build more probes to send in every direction, and the expansion of Robot kind is expanding at 5 light years every two centuries even if they don't bother leap frogging each over. So then robots reach every corner of the galaxy in about 4 million years. By which time regardless of whether the computers are based on uploaded trans-humanists, evolved algorithms, or engineered software. The Darwinian nature of any self copying system will mean that those robots with copying errors that make them make the most copies and spread them most rapidly will cover the galaxy depleting all available mineral resources. Darwin always wins in the end.

Edit: that is weird this message came in further up the thread than a post I made earlier leading me to double post.

This design seems vulnerable to forward collapse, especially with a lot of grip on the top surface; maybe using lots more screws than you think sensible would solve the potential problem.

 

Edit/ or using thicker supports

Before the plywood is screwed onto the sides the legs are definitely vulnerable to being twisted off. Like allot of kit set furniture it can be quite fragile when partially constructed. But the plywood on the sides can do the job of many diagonals while being easier to install. The most important screws are at the top and bottom of the legs to keep them vertical, mid point screws mainly keep the ply from flexing. I agree you would not want to scrimp on screws.

How does warp drive maintain the conservation of energy and momentum? Does the expansion of space behind you push away nearby planets and stars as reaction mass? If you can repel planetary mass remotely (and efficiently). Then you can launch hover and land large nuclear powered spacecraft on Earth without all the inconvenience and hassle of multi stage rockets. Just like they do in all those alien invasion films You just need to make a few adjustments to CERN or the LHC and they will launch into interstellar space I am sure.

Would it be possible to spin the warp bubble so that it takes a corkscrew path to destination? And would that help shed the radiation and crud building up in the compressed space at the front of the bubble so you dont incinerate yourself when you turn it off?

Mars seems to of maintained a non extreme axial tilt despite the absence of a large moon. Although it no longer count as planet Pluto is another example of a body with a proportionally large moon, so much so I think it counts as a binary dwarf planet with an orbital point above Pluto's surface. A gas giant could have several earth sized moons, it would not not matter if they got tidally locked to the gas giant as the orbit of the gas giant would provide the day night cycle preventing the atmosphere freezing on one side.

The calculations for critical mass can be done by many university students with access to much more information on nuclear physics than was available in the 1940's. The gun type nuclear weapon is a simple design with a very high degree of tolerance. They were so sure of that design that they flew it over Hiroshima without testing it first (Trinity went the Plutonium route). Its almost guaranteed to go off, that is partly why they did not make many, the risk of accidental detonation is too large. No doubt there are some classified details that could improve the yield but also have no doubt that this design will work.

Many people who start work in classified fields expect it to be all fandoogally like in the films. But then are surprised find inefficient primitive technology trailing behind the commercial sector all over the place. Secrecy leads to stagnation, stifling the spread of ideas.

If you want a ramp which is less steep than the steps, this is my design. A plank over an inch thick an wide enough for use as a ramp is in red, Legs cut from the same wood are in brown which the ramp is screwed to (blue squiggles are and dots are screws). In order to keep the legs rigid and provide extra grip, cut a rectangle of plywood of the same height and length of your ramp diagonally into 2 triangles and screw them onto both side of the legs and ramp planks (that's what the yellow shading is supposed to represent). Trim to fit.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0ByDLQlU7_quhMDl1ai04YzZRRTA/edit?usp=sharing

Chemistry classes are effectively banned. Any history book that describes the invention of gun powder and many other developments chemistry will have to be redacted. Will have to tell children rockets and internal combustion engines are powered by magic instead of controlled explosions. All future chemical engineers etc will have to be imported from countries without such insane policies, but they wont be able to bring any reference books with them, and something akin to the great Chinese firewall will have to erected constantly searching for and blocking forbidden websites.

Have you ever met a lawyer or judge they perceive it as there duty to interpret every law as literally as possible Shaken is right they will over interpret any law you write to prosecute children making soda rockets.

Neither is it possible to create a country that makes every body happy with schools that turn everyone into care bears. There will always a number of nutters and sadists that crawl out the woodwork and they will always find the information they need, fortunately most of them are stupid enough to get caught or blow themselves up even with the internet at there fingertips. Evolution created man unequal.

Is this removable in the sense that you want things back to normal when you sell the house or that you to put it up and down every day?

You use cut always and extensions on the side to brace against the banister rail and alcove. To have a structure that extends to the floor and steps would also reduce slippage, maybe making some kind of folding structer if you want it to store more compactly . If don't mind screwing hinges into the wall Dimreeprs solution is probably best.

Techlee read the first page. With new calculations this has been reduced from a Jupiter sized mass to a few tons of negative mass and energy. Still requires extraordinary unknown technology but it gives warp enthusiasts a bit more hope than plans for Jupiter sized warp drives.That is what all the excitement is all about.

This is a good example of how you can not endlessly zoom in on an image to get new details like they do on CSI shows. The creature looks quite different from one frame to the next because a cheap surveillance camera is picking up few details of a grey animal crossing a grey road in poor lighting conditions. The head is only a few pixels across so often the computer interprets this as round blob without muzzle or ears. Sometimes it blends in with the shadows. Rewind back to the zoomed out image at the beginning of the video and you may get a clearer sense of what it is, looks like grey hound or a great dane to me. The frames fromthe far right hand side of the road show some of the more dog like features like a collar and maybe some floppy ears.

Im guessing that between the reactors and the FEL will be some big super capacitors for energy storage.

One advantage of the FEL other other laser is that as the lasing medium is already a magnetically confined plasma you dont have to worry about it melting so instead of directing the beam with mirrors or prisms which can also melt I wonder if it possible to mount the FEL on a turret.

About the canon ball idea, in order for a battleship to get within artillery range it would need its own FEL to shoot down all the planes and missiles that a carrier group has at its disposal. Even that giant rail gun has less ballistic range than than a carrier groups planes and missiles. You can also mount a kinetic penetrator on a ballistic missile but realize that a you dont have to entirely rely on photon pressure to change the projectiles course as the ablation of the projectiles surface provides reaction mass and changes its aerodynamic profile when it reaches the atmosphere.

Compared to hydrocarbons, hydrogen has low energy density and is extremely hard to to store and pipe. Tiny little single proton hydrogen atoms have a way of wiggling there way through any seal and even solid glass or steel.

The cost of farming and harvesting the plant material and bringing it to the processing plant must be include in the energy calculations. Using crop wastes like straw reduces the amount of compost returning to the soil.

You are assuming that Aliens would want to colonize planets in general much less the earth. It seems for more likely from the stand point of both resources and incompatibility of life forms from different planets that artificial space colonies would be the easiest and ultimate the most likely way aliens would colonize space. Gravity wells are quite possibly places to be avoided by aliens lloking to colonize...

 

The entire galaxy could be colonized by many different species of aliens, our own Star could house many different aliens in it's ort cloud kuiper belt areas. In fact stars with out planets but extensive asteroid belts similar to Vega might be the most desirable of stars.

 

There have reception of radio sources that closely resembled terrestrial military radars detected from space, they were transitory and originated from near the center of our galaxy. Because they were one time events they do not count as evidence but they are suggestive...

There is no evidence that the asteroid belt or other small planetoids like the moon has been strip mined. Nor do infra red telescopes detect any waste heat from machinery, habitats, or fusion reactors in the Kuiper belt or Ort cloud. The exponential growth of life in new habitats is an inherent feature of anything that can reproduce, so the forces natural selection will insure that any Von Nueman robots or warp faring civilization will consume all minerals resources in the galaxy within a few thousand to a million years. So either interstellar travel and controlled nuclear fusion power is close to impossible, or industrial civilizations have a frequency that is near or less than 1 per Milkyway sized galaxy.

What is so outdated about primordial soup theory? Electric arcs in in mock ups of Earths early atmosphere produce building blocks for organic chemicals. Just because these experiments where done a while ago does not discredit them.

Suppose we did find a way to create donuts out of 2 tonnes of negative mass and warp between stars, and we found nothing but sterile worlds like the OP or Fermi's paradox would predict. How long would it take for a sterile earth like planet or moon seeded with algae and plant life to become habitable.

If we are using films like Avatar as scientific resource did anyone else notice that the CO2 levels given for the planet in Prometheus where borderline breathable? They did not need those space suits or helmets just maybe the occasional use an oxygen line.

In a truely monogamous species there is much less sexual selection on males almost every male can find a mate.

Would it be ethical to condem people to sufer and die from genetic diseases if there was a way to prevent them

The accusation in the movie was that the hoax was very sophisticated, carried out with the backing of a wealthy and technologically very capable man with a reputation for skirting the law, and any discrepancies were covered up somehow by the main recipients of the signals - a small number of the world's top pros in cahoots.

 

If you recall, the signal stopped inexplicably as soon as the machine was turned on - better evidence, to the accusers, of its near earth origin, than any more subtle problems were of its distant one. And the faction that wished to disbelieve in the alien origin was presented as strongly motivated as well as resistant to scientific argument.

 

As a foreteller of climate change denial, the story seems to have got a lot of the situation pretty well laid out.

It would require not just the top pros in cahoots. It would require modifying every single radio telescope in the world. You would have to splice in a device which emit a signal only when the telescope is pointed at exactly the right angle which is changing all the time.

Your description of the hoax theory it a bit different to what I remember, is that from the book? If I remember correctly at the end of the film they said he launched a satylite to fake the signal which of course would have the orbiting problem of not staying in the right place in the sky as well as a parallax problem of between multiple earth telescopes. With the script writer misunderstanding what geostationary orbit implies.

I remember this annoying me too, I was still in high school but I still noticed it. But even if the accusation was politically motivated any report or inquiry that came to that conclusion would be ridiculed by any anilist who thinks about it a bit.

I do agree there is a big degree of wanting to be sure of children, so there is a value in a primitive society for virginity, without the knowledge of pregnancy testing, BUT the furphy that that would somehow guarantee even the first child was theirs, if the woman had a life non restricted, means that the obsessional control of women is MORE likely with obsession with virginity.

 

snip

You correct their can be no guarantee for a man that he will not be cuckolded. A seat belt is no guarantee you wont die in a car crash either but you can reduce the risk.

Ug has two prospective wives Jill like her sisters has slept with every man in the tribe and is easily seduced by every man she meets. Jane like her sisters is a chaste virgin who says she is saving herself for her one true love and husband. Using Bayesian reasoning which nubile is less likely to cuckold Ug when they marry? Disregarding the bastards Jill wants help with feeding which maiden is a better investment for Ugs Mammoth meat?

If want a magnet configuration that attracts but maintains an air gap here is one. Magnetic levitation without superconductors.

quick question, if we built a ship this ship and it took off from near earth orbit; would people on earth see it moving away from us at the speed of light, or would it disapear in an instant.

and if the ship traveled four million light years away and came back, within a few weeks, would the earth still be here?

More interesting might be when in it returns to near Earth orbit you would see the light from its arrival before you see the light of it coming. Presumably you would see some kind of flash from the energy released and the light build up in the compressed space etc with the ship hopefully surviving, the you see the light from earlier when the warp bubble was further away, so you sea the warp bubble receding off into the distance when when actually your seeing the arrival of the ship that is already here.

Or when you see a fly by first you would see the light from the warp bubbles closest approach And then the earlier light from it coming and the later light from it leaving both as the same time, so it looks like two warp bubbles erupt suddenly out of nothing from the same spot heading in opposite directions..

This is not true at all. There are no frames in which a photon is at rest. Please do not be misleading and post errant information as fact.

I did not mean that, nothing is at rest anyway. I mean you can hypothesize extra rules of physics that prevent FTL causality violations without totally contradicting known physics, I thought I was clear that this was far from hard science, I have edited that post to hopefully make the speculative nature more clear.

Life as we know it is likely rare for any given field of view, this planet is really good for life, yet in the 3.8 billion years life started, we have not seen any new type of base-pair life, that's how unlikely it is. Even on a perfect planet we have not seen any new life spontaneously develop after 3.8 billion years, but given that the universe is so large there must be life in at least one other planet. Given that it is indefinitely large, there could be an indefinite amount of life, but looking at probability it would still have to be spread out pretty far.

Any new life will not yet of undergone any more than a few generations of natural selection before encounter much more adapted life which will likely out compete it for any available niche. So I dont consider it unexpected that all life on earth is descended from a common ancestor.

Its funny how much is written about astrobiology when with a statistical sample of 1 we simply don't know.

I cant wait till we insert a submarine into Europa in which case if we find no life we know it does not always happen but it could still be quite common, if we find life its probably quite common unless it comes from pansthermia the we are back to square one. But on the plus side a common ancestor would make Europan calamari more edible.

Hopefully NASA will get to working on the warp drive soon.

A working, practical warp drive would be dam handy. But it would also highlight Fermi's paradox in a BIG way. On the plus side sterile worlds waiting to be seeded with algae would be much easier to terraform than worlds already filled with life made indigestible left handed proteins and odd base pairs. There would also be lots of Avatar fans preventing human expansion, such ethical considerations would be null when seeding a sterile world to make homes for space Amish.

As all other attempts at punishment or rehabilitation of criminals fail to prevent the majority of criminals from going on to commit more often worse crimes. The only other realistic solutions to prevent them re offending are indefinite detention or euthanasia. So I am 100% for the castration of criminals, especially all repeat offenders.

Criminal tendencies are also highly heritable so preventing criminals from breeding is a bonus for future generations.

Castration sounds like one of those "cruel and unusual punishments" that would be held to be unconstitutional.

Any punishment is unusual if the law does not mandate it, as soon as the law mandates it it become standard practice and quite usual. All punishments are cruel otherwise they are not punishments by definition. So all and all that is quite a silly thing to write in your constitution.