Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:This is newsworthy??? (Score 1) 77

If by 'screen sharing' you mean VNC or RDP: that is often acceptable within a single LAN. But when VPN'ing in from home, the latency can be tiresome. With a character-based interface, there is of course still latency, but it is much less tiresome because the stream is a tiny trickle compared to the graphical modes.

Comment Re:This is newsworthy??? (Score 2) 77

Terminal multiplexers such as screen and tmux still have their place. Not only do they allow you to organize your terminals by task, but they are also detachable from your console. This allows you to (example) start a build at the office, where your machine physically resides, then later from home SSH into your work machine and reattach to the tmux / screen session.

Comment Re:Life itself is a Von Neumann machine... (Score 1) 608

The problem with living crew is that-- as you mentioned-- they would evolve enough over time that they would lose interest in their original purpose. "Screw those embryonic proto-xenohumans, we xenohumans need to look out for 'Number One'."

Remember, the 'xeno-humans' would be as much our descendants as the embryos, just more removed. It's entirely possible to have far more massive populations in space than on the ground.

Hell, at some point intellectual curiosity would probably ensure the 'rebirth' of ground based humans. It'd just be after there's 10B or so space-humans in the system. As a bonus, that gives a goodly amount of time to conduct some terraforming on the target planet to improve it's suitability.

I know both groups would be evolutionary cousins. My point was: 1. A generational ship is much more expensive than a 'spore' ship containing frozen embryos.
2. If you're going to bother with a living crew, then you lose all the economy of the frozen embryos, and so why even bother with the embryos?
3. The living crew will diverge into a different, possibly-incompatible species over time, and thus their motivations may no longer be aligned with the original goal of the mission.

So: embryos w/ ship-mother, or living crew. But not both.
Finally: I assumed that we would choose our target planet well before launching, so no terraforming necessary. (But: wildlife & environmental hazards unknown.) The spore-ship would be analogous to tree pollen, floating on the wind; either it lands in a viable place, or it doesn't.)

Comment Re:Life itself is a Von Neumann machine... (Score 1) 608

Since we are talking about the distant future, I was envisioning an automated craft that acted as vessel, womb, mother, and teacher. Craft would resume gestational development once it reached orbit. Wouldn't bother landing until the children had decanted, and had been taught sufficient survival skills. Then land, and let them apply their textbook learnin's as best as they can, do-or-die.

The problem with living crew is that-- as you mentioned-- they would evolve enough over time that they would lose interest in their original purpose. "Screw those embryonic proto-xenohumans, we xenohumans need to look out for 'Number One'."

Comment Re:What is the alternative? (Score 1) 170

Who do you want setting telecommunication policy: experts in that field, or experts at winning elections? 200+ years ago, when our system of government first formed, life was simple enough that the qualifications for competent governance were not much above a grade-school education. Today's world is far more complex. The bar to entry into Congress is too low to fill those shoes competently.

Comment Re:Could of gone without the youtube video (Score 1) 3

Submitter here. I concur-- the trailer seems to be bits and pieces of other interviews, stitched together out of context. Perhaps this production will get sued out of existence before it is ever released. But my point had to do with Kate Mulgrew, who has apparently been hired to do narration, and thus is apparently OK with it.

Submission + - Kate Mulgrew, aka Captain Janeway, Thinks Sun Revolves Around Earth. (rawstory.com) 3

synaptik writes: A new documentary film, narrated by a former Star Trek actress, promotes the long-ago disproven idea that the sun revolves around the Earth. 'Everything we think we know about our universe is wrong,” says actress Kate Mulgrew as she narrates the trailer for “The Principle.' The film, which is set to be released sometime this spring, was bankrolled in part by the ultra-conservative and anti-Semitic Robert Sungenis, who maintains the blog 'Galileo Was Wrong.'

Comment My method (Score 5, Funny) 195

I punch 3 holes in every receipt: one each for parent, left, and right. Then I attach them all by string, in a balanced tree. If I need multiple search keys, I just use different colors of string, and different sets of holes. Rebalancing can be a bit of a bitch, after insertion. (I never delete.)

Slashdot Top Deals

"Floggings will continue until morale improves." -- anonymous flyer being distributed at Exxon USA

Working...