What is Digg?212 Comments
- Berkana, on 04/08/2008, -1/+56A message just in from SETI: "All your base are belong to us."
- zhatka, on 04/08/2008, -0/+41In the immortal words of Tommy Lee Jones as Agent Kay in Men In Black:
Edwards: Why the big secret? People are smart. They can handle it.
Kay: A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. - skeen07, on 04/08/2008, -5/+35You're a moron.
Sincerely,
skeen07 - CressCrowbits, on 04/08/2008, -6/+32Dear Digg admins:
Can we have a filter that automatically removes the constant posts by people who don't understand how Digg works?
Sincerely,
CressCrowbits - icepick314, on 04/08/2008, -3/+24but didn't L. Ron Hubbard already received call from Xenu?
- BluesFan, on 04/08/2008, -4/+22I wouldn't be suprised if we got a message years a go.
- Rapax, on 04/08/2008, -1/+19I seriously doubt that 'governments' would have any saying about it getting out or not. After all, the guys working on SETI are mainly scientists, and not just any scientists, but mostly those who chose this particular calling because they honestly love the subject (it's pretty hard to get into that field, and once you do, it's not very well paid). As true scientists, the vast majority of them have a strong natural aversion to secrecy. Free distribution of information is one of the basic pillars of successful research. Add to that fact that the work is fairly complex, not something just any governement or military layman can 'take over'. The guys working on this are pretty much the only ones that CAN do it. And finally, any signal will not be recorded by a single location, scientist or team, but rather will have to be pieced together by many teams working from several countries around the world.
I think it's rather safe to assume that it would be all over teh intarwebs before any three letter agency could react. - Rapax, on 04/08/2008, -2/+19So things, like mathematics, are universal and independant of how you think. It stands to reason that any civilization wanting to make contact would fall back on something like that first. Once you have maths, you can build up pretty much everything from there.
- Cruelapollo, on 04/08/2008, -2/+18Dear Digg admins:
Just wanting to look cool.
Sincerely,
Cruelapollo
P.S. This is what part of the alphabet would look like if "Q" and "R" were eliminated. - lolinyerface, on 04/08/2008, -1/+16If ET Calls, Would We Be Told? No.
Would people break the barriers to get the word out? Yes.
Will people take them seriously and will they be marred as a crazy loon? Yes. - smacksaw, on 04/08/2008, -0/+14ET called at 3am, but Hillary answered the phone and misspoke her greeting and they hung up thinking it was the wrong number.
- inactive, on 04/08/2008, -0/+13Is that you, Fox Mulder? The truth is out there. Trust no one.
- HyperJack, on 04/08/2008, -2/+15Dear Digg admins:
Can you sort this crumbling site out!
I'm not complaining about the Algorithm. You know that leaves a lot to be desired.
But recently I cannot seem to go to a single page without it telling me there was an "error" completing my request.
And when I try to "reload the page" as advised, it logs me out!
Please, get on with your jobs administrating this site or you are going to see a rapid decline in users,
Sincerely,
HyperJack - aphexcoil, on 04/08/2008, -4/+16Nasa: We get signal!
President: What!
Nasa: Turn main screen on!
President: Who in the hell is Rick Astley?
Nasa: Someone set us up the Rick Roll - TargetDog, on 04/08/2008, -0/+11I ran the seti@home screensaver for a couple of years. I deserve to know the truth.
- frogman54, on 04/08/2008, -1/+12Dear Digg admins:
I enjoy waffles. Just letting you know.
Sincerely,
The Frogman - pinchduck, on 04/08/2008, -1/+11I think you are underestimating the power of the mundane. Sure, there would be a lot of excitement and curiosity, but the vast majority of people are still worried about how to make their mortgage payment, their car payment, the cheapest price for groceries, etc. The intellectually curious of the world would spend years debating the physical, philosophical, religious and scientific implications of a signal. The rest of the population would get board and be distracted by their workaday problems or the next banal celebrity scandal.
- Hawkeye05, on 04/08/2008, -0/+9You forgot a "w" and an "h" learn to spell, this isn't AIM from 2002.
- o0joshua0o, on 04/08/2008, -1/+10Communication with the aliens will be no problem. They all use Macintosh computers, and have unencrypted wireless networks that we can freely upload executables to.
- Azerael, on 04/08/2008, -0/+8Well... we'd get a lot of requests for tech support.
- kaffein, on 04/08/2008, -0/+8"If an asteroid is coming, would we be told?"
- SpaceMonkeyZero, on 04/08/2008, -0/+8I already saw this movie. It was called Contact.
That said, I would hope we were notified of the message. - Bowman3001, on 04/08/2008, -0/+8"The best proof that there is Intelligent Life in Outer Space is the fact it hasn't come here"
ACC - Jeffler, on 04/08/2008, -0/+8Nah, Space Jam was the real documentary. Michael Jordan may deny it, but thats because thats what he wants you to think.
- diadem2, on 04/08/2008, -3/+11I always wondered why some stories can get to the front page with so few hits, and others cant with hundreds.
- bossm4n, on 04/08/2008, -1/+9If Klaatu calls, take a message.
- spinladen, on 04/08/2008, -3/+11Um yeah. SETI has been in constant communication since the 60's. 1 of the lead scientists tried to disclose in 2001 at the National Press Club but the MSM covered it up.
- surKaz, on 04/08/2008, -0/+7That too is an interesting question... but then, many independent people would find out in different places... Hard to keep that under wraps.
- Chirp08, on 04/08/2008, -0/+7We can only hope Japan doesn't decode the message and get us into an intersteller war by mistake.
- CraigReed, on 04/08/2008, -0/+7In reality the more likely scenario would be if they sent us such a message would anyone even realize we got it, or for that matter would we even be able to understand said message in time. With our known technologies they would probably have to be fairly close to us to even send us the message in time and if they had the technology to send it faster would we even be able to receive it?
- Rapax, on 04/08/2008, -0/+7So, faced with a bunch of animals, and intending to pick one to eat, do you go for one of the normal average big dumb herbivores that's just standing around chewing plants, or do you eat the one that's shouting "don't eat me, I'm sentient!".
- Rapax, on 04/08/2008, -0/+7Well, choosing a sybol for pi isn't maths, it's semantics. It doesn't matter what symbol is used to convey that specific number, but the ratio between circumference and diameter of a circle in flat space is something we can agree on, no matter what cultural background you come from.
- inactive, on 04/08/2008, -1/+8If we get a call from ET, we should
A: totally rick roll their asses.
B: Use the Ahnold sound board to call them.
C: Ask them why they kicked our dog.
That would make the greatest youtube vid of all time. - Rapax, on 04/08/2008, -0/+6You're confusing maths with arithmetic. The point of the drake equation isn't to deliver a single number as an answer. It's point is a) to define the relationship between factors that influence the number and b) to give us ballpark figures depending on how well we can limit the parameters. For instance, one of them, 'fp', is the percentage of stars that have planets orbiting them. Since a large number of extrasolar planets have been found recently, we can be pretty confident that that parameter isn't in the low single digits. Other parameters, like 'fL' for instance are harder to judge.
As for your proposed equation, can you explain why y should enter in it's 32nd power? I don't quite see how that relationship should work ;) - stonklit, on 04/08/2008, -0/+6It would be like anything else, they would not make it public to avoid mass hysteria.
It's pretty much SOP that if anything threatening were to happen on a massive scale, they are not to disclose it.
Kinda like when your plane is about to crash. Your pilot doesn't tell you. They keep the calm and simply say, "Bad turbulence, please take your seats" (Per most black box recoveries) - Rapax, on 04/08/2008, -1/+7I assume you're laughing at my typo in the first line. Indeed, 'so' should have been 'some'. Amazing what some people seem to find hilarious.
- Rapax, on 04/08/2008, -0/+6Or they're probably watching and listening. But the point is that they couldn't do anything about the information getting out. Conspiracies and science just don't mix very well. Take a look at how hard it was to uphold secrecy during the manhattan project, and that was a fairly localised affair, with most participating scientists agreeing that secrecy was necessary. Now imagine them spread out all over the world, and 90% of them convinced that it's their duty to make it public.
That's why 99.9% of all 'supressed science' claims and stories are BS. Real science is fiendishly hard to supress. - ugene, on 04/08/2008, -2/+8Dear Earth,
We were just drifting by when we noticed your solar system drifting into a black hole.
we would save you but...
Wow caused the downfall or our civilization.
have a nice day - Azerael, on 04/08/2008, -1/+6How could they 'not reason like us'? Reason is based on logic, and logic operates on a level without any particular abstraction. It's not as if two plus two to them would equal seven, when to us it equals four. If it did, you could hardly call that reason; and there's very little chance they would manage to engineer clockwork, let alone interstellar communications technology.
- fyngyrz, on 04/08/2008, -2/+7Fine. But they'd be putting out this information to a population (in the US) that 80% still answers surveys that they think there's an all-powerful, all-knowing daddy-figure in a magical happy place who created them, and is watching over them. It strikes me that the effect of telling them the universe is not built around them and in fact, we're behind the "we're special" curve as a species, will be about the same as a lifetime of exposure to science has been thus far -- very little.
- o0joshua0o, on 04/08/2008, -0/+5Bush has had a glazed, uncomprehending look since he first took office.
- Jektal, on 04/08/2008, -1/+6Yeah, except in alienese the symbol for Pi is a wavelength somewhere in the ultraviolet spectrum broadcast for 2.43 milliseconds. Great lot of good that will do ya.
- Lynxpro, on 04/08/2008, -2/+7You watch...if the scientists ever announce that they've received an alien signal, fundamentalist Baptists will declare that it is really Satan and his minions tricking the world into believing in space aliens when they really are demons. I've heard that argument made explaining so-called "alien abductions".
- shaymein, on 04/08/2008, -0/+5but, as you recall, there was mass protesting that occurred and cult following.. and eventually David Drumlin was blown up... so they may want to prevent that...
- smacksaw, on 04/08/2008, -0/+5Dear Digg admins:
Why didn't you call me after what happened last night? You told me I was special. - A11YND, on 04/08/2008, -0/+5Govt. Briefing reports follow-up "You have no chance to survive make your time. Hahaha."
- Myonosken, on 04/08/2008, -1/+6Its because its the Space category, which needs fewer than the Tech sections.
- norman619, on 04/08/2008, -1/+6How would you know it's a message and not another natural source of a radio signal that looks artificial? We have done that before.
- troon, on 04/08/2008, -3/+7Rickrolled by aliens!
- Rapax, on 04/08/2008, -0/+4SETI mostly looks for intentional signals, not for the kind of radio noise that we assume any civilization with a compareable level of technology to our own would produce. It also assumes that any possible civilization would have a similar level of common sense as ours (preferably higher). So it's pretty safe to assume that any civilization that is sending signals that it want's to be heard will take steps to make those signals recognizable. This means both using some kind of 'attention getting' pattern that does not look natural, and also using a band that is pretty free of interference. If you look at what SETI actually does, you'll notice that they are looking in a number of tightly defined bands, that would appear to be logical choices.
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