Figure this would have a better chance of surviving in the Media Center than on the main page, and I'll be adding youtube and podcast links from time to time as I come across them, so it fits.
This has been something that's interested me from a very young age, all aspects of mysterious stuff, whether we're talking forgotten or forbidden archeology or civilization (Atlantis, pre-colombian exploration of america, etc), unexplained events (like Tunguska in 1908, the lost Roanoke Island colony, etc), paranormal events like ghosts, the study of ESP and that sort of thing, conspiracy (ranging from JFK to stuff like the perpetration of the drug war and the infilitration of the media by US intelligence) and, of course, UFOs (which to me means "unexplained" not "extraterrestrial" but that's a whole other topic).
Anything could show up, and everybody should feel free to add whatever they like. Just try to keep it as civil and respectful as possible. This is not intended to be a DC thread; it's as much for entertainment purposes as it is to solve all the world's mysteries.
**Although if anybody posts anything from Third Phase of Moon they should probably expect me to kick them in the balls.**
Few things I like to watch or listen to in no particular order (most of this can be found on itunes as well...):
Originally Posted by keg in kc:
Interesting article about a potential previously unknown species of human in China 60 to 120 thousand years ago, which would bring the currently believed number of species to I think five: http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150...ecies-of-human
I was wondering as I was showering this morning when a new species of human would evolve from us. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Buck:
I was wondering as I was showering this morning when a new species of human would evolve from us.
It's already started. 30 years from now we'll be fully integrated with technology, internally connected to wireless networks. 50 years from now medical and nanotechnology will have all but eliminated disease and dramatically reduced aging. At least it will be that way for some small segment of the population. Assuming we haven't eradicated ourselves with nuclear weapons or weaponized bioagents. We're right on the cusp of the theorized singularity event. [Reply]
Originally Posted by keg in kc:
It's already started. 30 years from now we'll be fully integrated with technology, internally connected to wireless networks. 50 years from now medical and nanotechnology will have all but eliminated disease and dramatically reduced aging. At least it will be that way for some small segment of the population. Assuming we haven't eradicated ourselves with nuclear weapons or weaponized bioagents. We're right on the cusp of the theorized singularity event.
I was binge watching "Black Mirror" about a week or two ago and I think they're more right than wrong.
What if the governmment paid people $0.15 a mile to generate electricity on a stationary bike?
A cleaner and more healthy society while you get fit.
And I don't think our society is ready for gene selection. Would a mixed race couple choose to pick more "white" traits because they think that would help their child make more money and suffer less racism?
Originally Posted by keg in kc:
It's already started. 30 years from now we'll be fully integrated with technology, internally connected to wireless networks. 50 years from now medical and nanotechnology will have all but eliminated disease and dramatically reduced aging. At least it will be that way for some small segment of the population. Assuming we haven't eradicated ourselves with nuclear weapons or weaponized bioagents. We're right on the cusp of the theorized singularity event.
Have you, or has anyone else, watched Transcendence?
It covers that ground really well IMO, cant believe it was such a bomb, a really good movie IMO... it was a timely story on that very subject that you'd think people would've flocked to considering this age were in.
Me? I have ZERO desire to be some disembodied and soulless consciousness that exists only in a microchip, or to even be "wired up" to the matrix in any way that you're describing above... let me die, and go wherever home is.
There is a line that will be crossed with that technology, and its certainly on the way, where people will stop being people and become machines... when that happens I hope the earth is wiped out. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Easy 6:
Me? I have ZERO desire to be some disembodied and soulless consciousness that exists only in a microchip, or to even be "wired up" to the matrix in any way that you're describing above... let me die, and go wherever home is.
There is a line that will be crossed with that technology, and its certainly on the way, where people will stop being people and become machines... when that happens I hope the earth is wiped out.
I'm envisioning something almost exactly like today, just instead of carrying devices they'd be internal. I'm not sure that machines won't help us overcome our inherent nature, rather than destroy it. And while this isn't directly connected, in my mind it is connected loosly, and that's that I don't think it's locked in stone that artificial intelligence will go the Terminator route. Although I think it's possible. I think machines could make us better humans. It just depends on a lot of factors. In any case it's not something I'm afraid of. But it is something to be wary of.
Some theorize that we're already part of a matrix. I'm not a believer in that particular train of thought myself. It's like sort of a pop culture religion.
As far as the earth being wiped out because it's something you don't like, that sounds like a techno version of the Rapture, that 16th century concept honed in the 19th century and popularized in the 1990s. Which is a whole 'nother topic, the mad fantasy people have about ending the world. It's been interesting living in the transition from the 19th to the 20th century and around 2012. [Reply]
Originally Posted by keg in kc:
I'm envisioning something almost exactly like today, just instead of carrying devices they'd be internal. I'm not sure that machines won't help us overcome our inherent nature, rather than destroy it. I don't think it's locked in stone that artificial intelligence will go the Terminator route... I think machines could make us better humans.
Shortened your post up to address what I wanted to say, but... yes, we already see the technology being not just tested, but being proven in labs, and more... where machinery becomes one with a person.
One easy example is military jet fighter tech, where all a pilot has to do is look a certain direction and think a certain thing to get his craft to respond.
Frankly, I believe this tech to be much further along than even these articles attest to.
As far as machines affecting our basic nature, I honestly believe they will negatively affect our inherent nature in an extremely negative way... people, both ourselves and others are not just bits of data.
I believe, as do many many others, that technology is already making us a less personable and more disconnected from one another as a species... where a Facespace "friend" makes one feel like they're engaged with the world, when in fact you'll most likely never even meet that "friend", and if one does, you'll probably both spend all of that time too busy watching ones phone and worrying about all of your other "friends" to connect with the one in front of you.
As far as AI, even Elon Musk, a definite envelope pusher in the field of future tech, is literally scared to death of what it might mean/what it might become, and soon...
I'm not saying it won't go that way. I'm saying it doesn't have to go that way.
As far as being more personable and less connected, I don't disagree. I'm about as disconnected as someone can be. I literally do not have a single friend who isn't virtual. But I never had friends before this technical evolution either, so I'm actually in contact with more people people now than I was before the internet, albeit in a very different yet still very real way.
In other words, what we're seeing may not be the end of connection, but the beginning of a different kind of connection.
But it's admittedly human nature to fear change....
And yes, technology in the dark sector is decades beyond what we have. I would imagine it's decades beyond anything in your articles. [Reply]
Originally Posted by keg in kc:
I'm not saying it won't go that way. I'm saying it doesn't have to go that way.
As far as being more personable and less connected, I don't disagree. I'm about as disconnected as someone can be. I literally do not have a single friend who isn't virtual. But I never had friends before this technical evolution either, so I'm actually in contact with more people people now than I was before the internet, albeit in a very different yet still very real way.
In other words, what we're seeing may not be the end of connection, but the beginning of a different kind of connection.
But it's admittedly human nature to fear change....
And yes, technology in the dark sector is decades beyond what we have. I would imagine it's decades beyond anything in your articles.
Sentence one... I simply disagree, its impossible for me to see how becoming more machine-like could help us as a species feel and empathize with another living being.
It can only break that human connection, IMO.
You dont have any friends outside the internet? thats hard to believe, I mean... I consider you a frie, wait... what?
I genuinely believe that the "scared of change" label can only go so far, at some point it will become a "you're right to fear change" truth... being connected to 24/7 to some world wide network is hardly my idea of humanity.
Nanobots in my heart cleaning out all of the Big Macs I ate? hell yeah... a chip in my head letting me see your facebook profile in my brain just by thinking about it?
Categorically inhuman and scary, it may sound sillly but its straight up Borg territory.
As for the "skunkworks" side of our defense budget... oh yeah, you're not blind, they're waaay ahead of what most people would even guess at. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Easy 6: its impossible for me to see how becoming more machine-like could help us as a species feel and empathize with another living being.
And there's your problem. Gotta open your mind to possibilities.
Originally Posted by :
You dont have any friends outside the internet? thats hard to believe, I mean... I consider you a frie, wait... what?
I actually have one work friend. Otherwise every single other person I know, outside of my family, I met online.
The internet has actually been great for me. I predate the internet (I'm 41) so I do know what the world was like before. I had no friends in secondary school or in college. I have literally zero social skills. I am a very nice guy, a very friendly guy, but I simply can't talk to or associate with people beyond basic greetings and small talk. Mid- to late-90s I was able to start meeting people online and it's changed my life in a lot of ways. I consider a lot of people here friends, people I've known for even longer than the board's been in existence (most of the old-timers met on the old KC Star bulletin board) and have even met a few in the real world, as difficult as that is for me. And we would have never met without the existence of the internet. I would never have been able to express myself well enough to develop any sort of connection with anyone.
There are certain things the internet brings which almost nobody mentions. Namely instantaneous communications with virtually anyone in the entire world. Which may change paradigms given enough time, and the assumption that the US government doesn't destroy the 'net the way that they seem intent upon doing, in the name of security and copyright infringement. For the first time in human history, strangers in strange lands, so to speak, are actually real, living, breathing people you can talk to regardless of distance. For the first time we can actually see for ourselves that in many places people are just like us. Not to mention that we can see just how many ****ed up people live in our own neck of the woods (I switched battlestar galactica embed links above because the first was posted by a white supremecist).
Good can come out of technology. I don't believe that destruction is the only possible destination. Whether good will come out of it is the question. If it does lead to the end of humanity, it won't be because of the technology itself, it will be because of the people who created it, and the people who abused it during and after its development. Which is a real worry for me since most of the development is being done for military application. But technology itself is not evil. It's people that are evil. [Reply]
Originally Posted by :
Here's What Would Happen If an Earth-Sized Asteroid Hit Earth
Written by
Becky Ferreira
Contributor
January 26, 2015 // 04:18 PM EST
This morning, an enormous space rock missed Earth by a narrow margin of 745,000 miles, or about three times the distance from the Earth to the Moon. With a diameter of 550 meters and a velocity of about 35,000 miles per hour, the asteroid, known as 2004 BL86, will be so bright in the evening sky that it will be visible through binoculars. Scientists don’t expect another object of this size to pass so closely to Earth until August 7, 2027.
This time around, we got lucky. But speculatively speaking, what if asteroid 2004 BL86 wasn’t a passing curiosity? What if it hurtled towards us just a little earlier, and instead of flying freely through the wake of Earth’s orbit, it collided with us head on? How bad would the damage be?
Fortunately, there is an online tool for calculating the apocalyptic potential of various impact scenarios. Run by Purdue University, Impact Earth allows users to input details about asteroids, comets, and other cosmic death traps, then crunches the numbers on the fallout.
I gave the calculator the known details about asteroid 2004 BL86, including its diameter and velocity. I entered a hypothetical mid-range angle of 45 degrees, and specified that the asteroid hit sedimentary land, not water. Then, I asked it to tell me what the damage would be like one kilometer away from the impact site. After a dramatic animation of an asteroid hitting New England, Impact Earth gave me a rundown of the designer catastrophe.
Naturally, it wasn’t pretty. “The projectile begins to breakup at an altitude of 49,800 meters (16,3000 ft),” Impact Earth predicted. It would be fractured by the time it hit the ground, striking the surface at a velocity of about 7.95 miles per second.
The energy released would be about 5,120 megatons, which is 100 times more powerful than the strongest nuclear bomb ever detonated. It would leave behind a crater with a diameter of 3.64 miles and a depth of 1.26 miles—similar dimensions to Alabama’s Wetumpka crater. But as the calculator noted under the “Global Damage” category, the impact would not be enough to disrupt the Earth on a global level by altering its orbit or its axial tilt.
Originally Posted by :
Distant exoplanet hosts giant ring system
Paul Rincon By Paul Rincon Science editor, BBC News website
27 January 2015 Last updated at 08:53 ET
Astronomers say they have discovered a planet with a gigantic ring system that is 200 times larger than that around Saturn.
It is the first such structure detected around a planet beyond our Solar System.
The researchers say there are probably more than 30 rings, each measuring tens of millions of kilometres in diameter.
The findings by a Dutch-US team are to be published in the Astrophysical Journal.
Gaps detected in the ring system also suggest that some of the material may already have coalesced to form moons. This phenomenon can be seen at work in Saturn's rings today.
"You could think of it as kind of a super Saturn," said Prof Eric Mamajek, from the University of Rochester in the US.
The rings were found in data gathered by the SuperWASP observatory, which can detect exoplanets as they cross in front of their parent stars, causing the light from them to dim.
In this case, the astronomers saw a complex series of deep eclipses lasting for 56 days. They think this is caused by a planet with a giant ring system blocking out light as it passes in front of the star J1407.
"The light curve from end-to-end took about two months, but we could see very rapid changes in the space of one night," lead author Dr Matthew Kenworthy, from the University of Leiden, the Netherlands, told BBC News.
"Over a time of half an hour, the star can dim by 30 or 40%."
If Saturn's rings were the same size as those around J1407b, they would be easily visible from Earth at night and would be many times larger than a full Moon.
Other possibilities, such as a planet-forming disc (the swirling mass of dust and gas from which planets form around a star) can be ruled out. A disc, says Dr Kenworthy, would produce much smoother changes in the light curve of J1407.
Last year, the astronomers tried to find the planet itself, but were not able to observe it.
"We threw the kitchen sink at this, we tried every single technique that we could think of," said Dr Kenworthy.
"But the lack of a detection means it has to be substellar, and the only thing that could hold these rings in place is a planet."
The team thinks that the planet itself is most likely a gas giant like Jupiter, but between 10 and 40 times as massive as that planet.
The distant ringworld, named J1407b, might also offer a glimpse - on a much larger scale - of the process that led to the formation of moons around gas giants in our own Solar System.
"The planetary science community has theorised for decades that planets like Jupiter and Saturn would have had, at an early stage, disks around them that then led to the formation of satellites," said Prof Mamajek.
The astronomers found at least one clean gap in the ring structure.
"One obvious explanation is that a satellite formed and carved out this gap," said Dr Kenworthy. "The mass of the satellite could be between that of Earth and Mars."
The researchers are encouraging amateur astronomers to help monitor J1407, which would help detect the next eclipse of the rings. Observations of J1407 can be reported to the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO).
This artist's impression shows how the ring system might look in our night sky if they were put around Saturn:
