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Sci-Fi

Submission + - Reminicent of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

bsjpark writes: "One of my colleague forwarded me an article written by Dr. Michio Kaku, physicist and author, in an interview at KurzweilAI.net that ranges from the Multiverse to "The Matrix." (Equally entertaining in its own way is the classic geek
fight in the comments attached to the interview.)

When I read the below phrases regarding how we might be able to find/recognize/communicate with extra-terrestrial if we do ever meet them, it does makes perfect sense. Ever since I was a young boy (who was addicted to Star Wars and Star Trek), I always had similar questions because it doesn't always makes sense and not plausible to think that extra-terrestrial would every be in similar size, physical form, and/or in same spectrum of intelligence.

Many people believe that they would be some what recognizable... which I have no idea why would those people who would think such a thing. I believe most of the display of so called "aliens" are drawn in such a way for entertainment reasons as well as for people to be able to relate and recognize them. Think about it. If the aliens are indeed illumination form which are not recognized by any of the human senses and not interactive with people, think of how boring it would be. Human and aliens living together without even noticing each other. You cannot make a movie nor media material with such thing!

" I personally think that SETI is looking in the wrong direction. If, for example, we're walking down a country road and we see an anthill, do we go down to the ant and say, "I bring you trinkets, I bring you beads, I bring you knowledge, I bring you medicine, I bring you nuclear technology, take me to your leader"? Or, do we simply step on them? Any civilization capable of reaching the planet Earth would be perhaps a Type III civilization. And the difference between you and the ant is comparable to the distance between you and a Type III civilization. Therefore, for the most part, a Type III civilization would operate with a completely different agenda and message than our civilization.

        Let's say that a ten-lane superhighway is being built next to the anthill. The question is: would the ants even know what a ten-lane superhighway is, or what it's used for, or how to communicate with the workers who are just feet away? And the answer is no. One question that we sometimes ask is if there is a Type III civilization in our backyard, in the Milky Way galaxy, would we even know its presence? And if you think about it, you realize that there's a good chance that we, like ants in an anthill, would not understand or be able to make sense of a ten-lane superhighway next door.""
Announcements

Submission + - All Your Rights Are Belong to Us

cyrusmack writes: "For those of us that thought US copyright law was about the most draconian in the world, we were shocked by today's announcement of a new lobbyist group that wants even stronger copyright law. The group, called the "copyright alliance", features the usual suspects: Microsoft, MAFIAA, Viacom und herr Maus ("Look, it's Walt Disney! Shoot him now!"). Funnily enough, there was no mention of information access rights nor of US copyright law's gross violations of basic human rights. Funny that."
It's funny.  Laugh.

Submission + - Identical Twins Battle Over Paternety Test

ziggamon2.0 writes: Twin brothers Raymon and Richard Miller are the father and uncle to a 3-year-old little girl. The problem is, they don't know which is which. Or who is who. Since they are identical twins, and have the exact same DNA they are inseparable in paternety tests. How is one to know? And if their DNA is really the same, in a biological perspective, does it really matter?
Microsoft

Submission + - QuickTime plays havoc with RAID in Vista!

Mr.Tweak writes: "Are you wondering why your RAID arrays keep dying under Windows Vista (32-bit and 64-bit)? It is not because you are unlucky, if you are trying to play QuickTime movies stored on the array using Apple software, that is your problem. Let's get the word out there and see if Apple and Microsoft cannot come together and fix this issue quickly. Temp fix for your RAID with redundancy arrays included."
Media

Submission + - Mass outage hits XM

An anonymous reader writes: XM Satellite Radio is experiencing a major outage right now, having lost one of its satellites and a massive number of repeaters. Listeners on the East Coast are mostly affected since XM's second satellite doesn't have a national footprint. Customer service reps are saying anywhere from 2 hours to 2 days for service to be restored.

The cause to all this mayhem? A software update.
Intel

Submission + - Intel Launches New Chipset

mikemuch writes: "The new P35 and G33 chipsets, codenamed "Bear Lake" are now available. They have a new memory controller that supports DDR3 RAM at up to 1333MHz, a new southbridge, and will support the upcoming 45nm Penryn CPUs. They don't yet have an actually new and different GPU — their GMA 3100 is pretty much the same as the GMA 3000 of the G965 chipset. ExtremeTech has details on the new chipset architecture."

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