h a l f b a k e r yTrying to contain nuts.
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Packaged as a neat futuristic looking device with knobs and digital readouts, it'll give you an accurate estimate of just how many alien civilizations are out there, waiting to be found.
Turn up the knob on the star formation rate, and watch those civilizations multiply!
Turn down the knob
on the fraction of live planets that evolve intelligence (there's no proof, after all), and watch those civilizations dwindle!
For an extra $9.99, add an audio chip using the digitally sampled voice of Carl Sagan to read out the output.
Drake's Equation Primer
http://www.seti-ins...ience/drake-bg.html
[theircompetitor, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]
(?) Aliens Cause Global Warming
http://www.crichton...eeches_quote04.html
Crichton points out the scientific fallacy of Drake's equation. [waugsqueke, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]
(?) here ya go!
http://www.seds.org/~rme/drakeeqn.htm
enter your own values... [futurebird, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]
Database of Current Thinking
http://www.halfbake...0Current_20Thinking
A lot of the discussion on this thread is very relevant to Crichton's article, above. [DrBob, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]
Billions of Earths
http://www.washingt...R2010102806505.html
[theircompetitor, Oct 29 2010]
Einstein's Pedometer
http://www.popsci.c...ur-daily-activities
[theircompetitor, Apr 11 2011]
Thanks, BBC
http://www.bbc.com/...-alien-worlds-exist
[theircompetitor, Aug 26 2012]
Wow, 100 billion or more planets in the Milky Way
http://www.scienced...01/130103143422.htm
[theircompetitor, Jan 03 2013]
Drake's Equation from the point of view of a tapeworm
http://www.antipope...tapeworm-logic.html
[normzone, Jan 11 2013]
Latest estimates on "earth sized, liquid water" planets
http://www.washingt...37c6f484_story.html
[theircompetitor, Nov 04 2013]
Estimates climbing
http://www.nytimes....ytopinion&smtyp=cur
[theircompetitor, Jun 10 2016]
1500 years to go
http://gizmodo.com/...m_medium=socialflow
[theircompetitor, Jun 16 2016]
ADE 651 Bomb Detector
https://andrewflynn...fake-bomb-detector/
unbelievable, but believed [xenzag, Jun 16 2016]
ADE 651
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADE_651
good role model for the Drake's Equation Calculator [xenzag, Jun 16 2016]
getting close to a good planet count estimator
https://phys.org/ne...sun-like-stars.html
[theircompetitor, Aug 14 2019]
Life? Everywhere... Intelligent life? Probably somewhere
https://www.popular...fe-exist-elsewhere/
[theircompetitor, Nov 25 2020]
[link]
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waugs: excellent article; I've seen myself the absurdities of the arguments about the ozone layer. I'm off outside to get a drag of some secondhand smoke. |
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Over the weekend I saw a WWI naval gunnery computer that had various knob and wheel driven input settings and then it chuntered out a result. This could be adapted to do this and would look wonderful too. |
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What's the point of this? If you want random numbers, use something involving radioactive decay, which is always more fun. And if you want unreliable statistics, hire pollsters. |
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On the other hand Crichton's essay must get some sort of credit for getting more than half way through before comparing contemporary scientists to nazis. |
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the linked app measures relativistic impact of your
motion. |
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and so nothing to do with cost/benefit analysis of throwing cloaks over muddy puddles as I had initially expected? |
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See last link.... if you construct a device and make it convincing enough, then it will convince people. In this case we see a bomb detector that did absolutely nothing but was sold for thousands of dollars and widely used, over a long period of time, fooling everyone. |
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The tapeworm bit is pretty dim. Tapeworms can reproduce sexually and frequently populate diversely within a given host. It is reasonable to assume that mechanisms of communication exist to keep this population informed of one another for reproductive purposes within a given host thus they do not doomed live in a speculative isolation but in a state of primative society with other tapeworms as well as some level of competition with other parisites. |
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I didn't know ducks were so clever. |
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