* Posts by mike3

5 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Feb 2010

Is lightspeed really a limit?

mike3

Re: @Destroy All Monsters - "humans limited forever"

And furthermore, even if there is no FTL travel, that doesn't necessarily make it *impossible* for us to go to the stars, just difficult, and long. There are lots of possibilities for "hard" interstellar travel that don't require radical new physics: e.g. we could use genetic engineering to increase our life span, thereby making even a 50- or 100-year star trip feasible. We could do it via multi-generational "migration" trips. And in lieu of sending biological life, we could build A.I.s that could travel out there over the long centuries.

All the above are theoretically plausible, and given what we know, more plausible than FTL travel, even if we don't know how to do them yet. There's no _laws of physics_ that forbid them.

As for "spreading beyond the biosphere", no, it's not _required_, but I suspect that it'd be good for us if we didn't give up on our drive to _explore_ beyond it at least, even if it will take a long time to do so. And furthermore, we don't need even interstellar travel of any sort to "spread beyond the biosphere" -- setting up a base on the Moon would do. :)

Why go to space? Simple. We are opening up _new_ things, so that we can do _new_ stuff that has _never been done before_. It challenges us, and it is the logical continuation of our desire to know what's beyond the next hill and the next river. And we'll learn a lot doing it -- stuff that'll likely have many unseen benefits.

Though I'd think that for now, the issues on our planet are more pressing than going to the stars, but once we can overcome them, then, well, the stars seem like a logical next step.

mike3

Re: Relativity, causality, FTL: Choose two

about dreams:

I sure hope you don't think anyone with dreams is a "tard" (how am I supposed to take that "commen<i>tard</i>" remark, anyway?<i>!</i>). Remember, with that kind of attitude, we'd still be in caves.

But yes, one does need "hard reality" to tell one <i>which dreams can be made to come true and which ones can't<i>. But that doesn't mean one shouldn't have dreams. A knowledge of "hard reality" tells you where you can go, can't go, how hard it is to get there, and, of course, <i>how</i> to get there if you can get there. But the <i>desire</i> to go and the <i>direction</i> in which to go requires, at some level, dreams. The two work together.

Linux kernel R&D worth over 1bn euros

mike3

Why include source code...

Why include source code? So other people who CAN program can make those changes. It frees the software from being tied to a single maintainer. If that maintainer dies, or quits, or whatever, someone else can pick it up and continue the software. And it's happened. It also means others can provide patches for bugs, or enhance the software program in various ways. And the Free Software paradigm is not just about including source code, but also about giving freedoms to the users that they would not have under restrictive (proprietary) models. With a piece of Free Software, I can legally take my disc and install it on as many computers as I please, or give a copy to my neighbor to help him, and other things. If I did that with a proprietary program, I'd be infringing the creator's copyright, i.e. violating the law. And I might not even be able to do some things that would otherwise be allowed under copyright law, because the license agreement said NO! to them.

In other words, the FS paradigm does NOT expect that "none" of the users will know what to do with it.

mike3

Interesting.

This statement is interesting: "we live in a world full of people much cleverer than you or I. " It makes it sound like they'd be the majority, and you must be in the dumbest minority then. How did you determine this? :)

Finally, what the shouldn't have is big egos. Ego is evil. That's what ultimately people see and react to.

mike3

It shows the POWER of the paradigm.

@PXG:

Why would someone work it out? Well, it goes to show the true POWER of the Free Software paradigm, as opposed to the proprietary one.

And the Linux kernel is not just a random chicken crossing a road, but a major part of computer infrastructure.

And I'm not sure why it'd cost 2.7 mill GBP just to do this little calc. Finally, the cost is likely tiny compared to the much larger amounts spent on things like war, continuing ecologically destructive activities (as opposed to trying to get away from them), and more.