Yahoo's Time Capsule Project 167
eldavojohn writes, "Yahoo is compiling a time capsule (Flash required). This massive project, which accepts donations from anyone, is no ordinary time capsule, though. This time capsule will be digitized and beamed into space from the ancient pyramid of Teotihuacan in Mexico. From the article: 'Starting on Tuesday, enthusiasts from around the world will have a chance to submit text, images, video and sounds that reflect human nature to be included in the message.' I highly doubt this 'time capsule' will reach anyone, but it is a neat idea. After browsing through some of the pictures posted, I would hope extraterrestrial life would be more hesitant to exterminate us — if not for anything else than curiosity. We constantly strive to have our legacy live on in the galaxy." Yahoo worked with Internet artist Jonathan Harris on this project.
Desperate Publicity Ploy (Score:5, Insightful)
I highly doubt this 'time capsule' will reach anyone, but it is a neat idea.
No this is not neat>, this is just stupid. This is so incredibly stupid it's left me speechless ... nearly:
So they're going to beam it into space via a laser from atop a ruin from a vanished civilisation. Are they going to rotate this laser to maintain RA and DEC, to keep it as one continuos beam or will they just fire it straight up (for maximum theatric effect) and thus have it whipped by the spin and orbit of the earth? Carl Sagan's record has a better chance. It's an opportunity for Yahoo to do something utterly useless to get their name in the news, just like it now appears on Slashdot. Applause, applause. It certainly is fodder for some comedy, maybe Mel Brooks will have someone in Spaceballs The Animated Series say, "what is that annoying glare?" while flipping down their pair of Spaceballs The Sunglasses.
meanwhile, picked up in orbit, the stream is immediately recognised and decoded by a Zygorthean ship. After reviewing the contents, the focus down upon the the pyramid of Teotihuacan and one says to another, "well, we certainly know what killed that civilisation!"
Aye (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Desperate Publicity Ploy (Score:5, Funny)
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Why "Troll"? (Score:5, Insightful)
And speaking of which, ffs, who got the stupid idea of sending encoded images? How about something as simple as morse codes, or train of pulses whose count are the prime numbers or Fibonacci's numbers? That's something that any civilization with even elementary maths knowledge and a primitive telescope can figure out quickly. "Hey, this can't be natural!" By comparison, a short faint burst of noise (which is what an alien data format would look like to you too) is likely to be written off as noise or as some unknown one-off cosmical phenomenon.
All in all it _is_ a stupid publicity stunt, and nothing more.
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Praise Darwin that I'm not the only person who thinks that SETI is a totally, inanely bolloxed waste of electricty, CPU & radio antennae.
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I'd argue that there is a possibility that it is more than a publicity stunt, but rather an overall attitude of not only American, but human sentiment in general.
Someone once answered the question about why people do the things they do in a way that makes sense, why we are so different from the other animals. "We know we die," she said, "and most of what we do is primarily motivated by this knowledge. I believe that honestly comes into play h
Cynical (Score:2)
Being that your version of life will end, never to be seen again, is it just not worth it to dream? Should Columbus never have used selfish motive? Or Magellan? Each had a 1 in a million shot by earthly standards at the time. After all it doesnt matter in the scope of things, they should have just stayed at home and drank themselves to oblivion in the pub.
What about the worlds largest cookie, absolutely absurd, but fun to do anyway.
It is ho
Sorry, that's not even close (Score:2)
E.g., Columbus's calculations might have been wrong, but he started from solid evidence that the Earth must be round. The idea tha
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You act as if acknowledging these truths makes you somehow want to sit in a corner and cry about it. Perhaps that is how most people feel. I find these truths to be liberating. If nothing you do ever really matters to anyone except yourself it gives you the freedom to do the things you really want to do. Now maybe for most people that's murdering and pillaging and whatever, but for most normal people it is simp
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Very few people ever actually deal with reality. It's too harsh.
I have long since come to the conclusion that in some part of most humans' minds, this knowledge MUST be blocked out - to KNOW that in the end, everything that we will ever know or ever dream will fall to dust, would paralyze and immobilize most people. Merely getting through a single day requires not thinking about the
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OTOH, a race capable of picking up sucj=h a weak signal might also know to look arounf the initals 'blip' and look for more blips. 5 blips and you ca calcualt how the signal mover and back track it to the sourse.
Sure, it's a stunt, and while it isn't likely to happen, it's fun to think about.
encoded images have a patterns. Of course the signal itself can have the method to decode the signal 'embedded'
Communicating math to an alien (was Re: Why "Troll (Score:2)
Re:Communicating math to an alien (was Re: Why "Tr (Score:2)
Certainly you don't expect rational thought from an artist who wants to shoot a laser from the top of a Mexican pyramid?
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They're going to send some internet porn out there? You'd have thought they'd send something a little more cultural.
Think further than the surface (Score:2)
If you gave an alien a photo, yes. But if you give them a signal encoded with some proprietary lossy compression? Heh.
The problem isn't the photo. The problem is that you get a stream of 1 and 0 and you have to figure how the fuck to even make heads or tails out of it. Before you'd get a photo to
Re:Desperate Publicity Ploy (Score:5, Funny)
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Such a waste of time and money.
I don't think this is possible (Score:4, Funny)
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Why Mexico? (Score:2)
Still, I found this comment interesting:
Archaeologists say a culture centred in Teotihuacan, known as the City of the Gods, dominated Mesoamerica for hundreds of years during the first millennium. It is unclear what led to the society's collapse.
The History Channel did a show on this- and suggested it was a lack of fuel & food (based on the fact that Teotihuacan is in the middle of a small mini-desert, which itself is in the middle of a jungle).
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I'm sure that's what they teach in Revisionist History class in politically correct schools these days, but it doesn't hold up. Teotihuacan collapsed a thousand years before the first European arrived there.
Random one I clicked on (Score:2)
Die Religion ist das Opium des Volkes...
Religion is the opium of the people...
La religión es el opio del pueblo
Re:Random one I clicked on (Score:4, Funny)
Don't kill us. Thanks.
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essential [yahoo.com]
42
A few thousand years later... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:A few thousand years later... (Score:5, Funny)
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Us: "Should we tell them that Google bought their god 900 years ago?"
Summary of message: (Score:1)
Wow (Score:2)
You know it's going to happen. (Score:2, Funny)
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"He's wearing a wedding ring!"
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Hopefully it will be interpreted like this: "Please, here is a detailed image of our bowels, now stop probing the human anus."
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Fine, but for God's sake (Score:5, Funny)
digital time capsule? (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe it would be easier to communicate, albeit more expensive, if we shot up a big rock with stuff written on it, say maybe 10 rules that we consider important? I can't imagine that would be misinterpreted somehow by an early desert people on another planet.
Re:digital time capsule? (Score:4, Funny)
Pre-emptive strike (Score:2)
Hiroshima, famine in post-colonial Africa, the Killing Fields, the Trail of Tears... you get where I'm going with this? Is that stuff being included?
With any foresight, they'll go Vogon on our asses.
Though, perhaps if we can get them to hold off for a bit, we'll be in better position to take advantage of their technology and separate th
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The human race has also don't some wonderfull things.
There reaction depends soly on their nature. Hopefully it's benevolent.
If it is hostile, then as our last act, I hope we put something long lasting on the moon that tells the next race about our folly.
Or even a very large orbit around the sun. Maybe attached to the Halley's Comet so we can nhide it from the incoming hostil aliens.
Of course, the odds of there being aliens, that can travel through space in a reasonable time, and stumbly upon this messa
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Well, I was partly being sarcastic, but I wonder if the 'time capsule' will indeed capture the worst as well as the best of what the human race has to offer.
If so, I think this could be a neat project not just for the slim chance of an alien race receiving it, deciphering it, and understanding it, but also for humankind to recognize what we are
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there is not best or worse the human race has to offer. Only the human race.
in other words... (Score:1)
"Hey everybody, throw your digital crap in here!"
Not gonna work, skippy.... (Score:3, Funny)
With our luck, aliens will be using Amiga OS or DOS and never see it.
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WiFi Spam (Score:3, Funny)
Lord Emperor, the Imperial Armada has exterminated the last of the hydrogen-band spammers. At last we can enjoy a reliable communication infrastruc... wait a minute, WTF is this coming from ZZ9 Plural Z-Alpha!?
Sell copies of it. (Score:2)
Why not sell copies of the "capsule" for a few bucks. It would be kind of neat. Copyrighted material might be a problem I guess, but I'm sure there'd be ways to work with that.
Yes, the protocol is universal (Score:2)
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Trivial, really.
Another proof of YHOO mental dilution? (Score:1)
No wonder their stock is dropping like a rock.
http://finance.google.com/finance?q=YHOO [google.com]
So, what if we send along a picture of... (Score:1, Redundant)
And if it -does- make the timecapsule, and somehow this message reaches aliens; Would they assume we're very open to their supposed anal probing?
Questions... Questions... Questions...
Oh, what's the point? (Score:2)
Whats with the hubris? (Score:2)
I have a feeling life out there might see us and go "No wonder they can't travel through space , look how nice they are!"
Overheard in a spacecraft orbiding Earth... (Score:1, Troll)
Green bug-eyed monster #1: "Listen to this transmission! Do you believe this?!"
Green bug-eyed monster #2: "WTF?"
Green bug-eyed monster #1: "This is one f***ed-up species!"
Green bug-eyed monster #2: "Word."
Green bug-eyed monster #1: "I say we blast off, and nuke the site from orbit."
Green bug-eyed monster #2: "It's the only way to be sure."
Interesting distribution (Score:4, Insightful)
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http://www.khaaan.com/ [khaaan.com]
text, images, video and sounds that reflect humans (Score:2, Funny)
Send It To Ourselves (Score:5, Interesting)
As I recall, Gerrold presented some mumbo-jumbo that said the storage capacity of such an arrangement - a billions-of-miles-long laser beam - was truly enormous. Sounded like a pretty good idea. Anybody think it would really work - and better yet, be practical?
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It does sound like an intriguing idea. Some of my thoughts on the subject:
In order to maintain a constant signal strength, each receiver/transmitter would need to "boost" the light signal, presumably by adding a beam of light of its own. The spillover
Anybody think it would really work? (Score:2)
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I collect donations (Score:2)
1. Collect massive quantities of information
2. Record them into expensive as hell piece of hardware
3. Throw it out in space and lose it forever
I swear it makes a hell of a sense!
Honestly. Let's see what we have here to communicate with unknown being from outer space. No really, let's ignore that those artifacts will never really hit anything remotely alive out there (hey the Universe is really huge you know? And most of it is just empty space).
We can try with li
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"3. Throw it out in space and lose it forever"
If I submit something, it is not lost forever. A copy is lost forever, but big whoop.
If they are to small, then they're not sentiant. So they are not the target demographic.(see, I recognize marketing when I see it!)
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Only goes to show how limited our knowledge is. You claim how big a sentient creature may be only because the sentient creatures you see around you are around a specific size.
Depending on environment, gravity and so on, you might end up with quite a different ecosystem.
Flash required? (Score:2)
Sir. We're receiving a transmission! (Score:2, Funny)
[Captain Kirk] So Ensign Shortskirt, what was that transmission?
[Ensign Shortskirt] It took a little while to reconstruct the message, but it appears, from the predominance of nude photos, to be an invitation for sex...
[Captain Kirk] Woohoo! Plot a course to the source!
[Ensign Shortskirt] Uhm. Sir, the origin point is Earth, as of about four hundred years ago...
[Captain Kirk] DAMN...IT...I...NEED...TO...GET...LAID!
[Ensign Shortskirt] Your cabin or mine sir?
[Captain Kirk] Mine. Five minutes. Bring
Funny one I saw (Score:2)
User generated content (Score:2)
It's like MySpace... In spaaaaaaace!
Speling Mistaeks (Score:2)
You know, maybe it's just me, but if I was composing a message that would be sent out to the Universe, available to entities on billions upon billions of worlds, I would at least run a spellcheck before hitting "Submit."
Special guest star (Score:2)
DRM? (Score:2)
Flash required (Score:2)
Goatse in space (Score:2)
We're made of meat (Score:2)
I would definitely include this classic by Terry Bisson.
http://www.terrybisson.com/meat.html/ [terrybisson.com]
"Omigod. So what does this meat have in mind?"
"First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the Universe, contact other sentiences, swap ideas and information. The usual."
"We're supposed to talk to meat."
It's been done before (Score:2)
Clearly, the last time capsule they tried to beam into space!!
What I would sent is a copy of Vista. (Score:2)
I would have suggested DNF, but by the time it will be out, we will deliver the goods to the aliens ourselves.
Hey people dont believe this (Score:3, Informative)
Yahoo has cancelled plans [dnaindia.com] for a "time capsule" ceremony at pyramids in Mexico, citing concerns regarding possible damage to the ancient site.
"The position of INAH is that after evaluating all the technical and operational aspects, it would be very difficult to move forward with this endeavour," Yahoo said in a release.
"Therefore, we have decided to move the location of the event. For now, we are focused on collecting as many unique and interesting contributions as possible from around the globe."
INAH: Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia (National Institute of Antropology and History).
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How can it require Flash?
Perhaps that's the true genius of it... The aliens will have to register with Macromedia to download the plug in and that's how we'll make alien contact! After that we'll defend ourselves against any hostiles with blasts of spam and junk faxes.
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That's because we (in the movie) designed TCP/IP and even digital computers themselves based off an examination of their alien technology!
For the millionth time:
The laptop. Was connected. To the Spaceship.
Which _itself_ was. Connected. To the mothership.
Yes, it was a cheesy action movie. No, their easy alien computer connection was not an error in the context of the movie.
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Which _itself_ was. Connected. To the mothership.
Are you Shatnering? 'Cause I don't think he was in that movie.
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They studied the technology for 50 years, but for some reason it would be impossible to build a emulator that runs on a mac.
sheesh.
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OK, like every other geek, when I left the theatre after Independance Day, I too felt like they had magically used TCP/IP or Apple-talk to communicate, and thought it was a ridiculous plot device.
Then I saw the directors cut of the movie several years later. And, like so many other directors cuts, the movie make a lot more sense.
In the directors cut, they went to great lengths to point out that the entire communications infrastructure of the Aliens was
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It does assume that the reciepent understands RF electronics.
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Oh well, I hope they don't pay the guy much.
Perhaps they should also have contracted Christo to wrap the swathe the pyramid in lemon vinyl.
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I can see it now:
1.Images and music files end up on alien P2P network- RIAA and MPAA go batshit, sue aliens, start intergalactic war- ALL of them against Earth.
2. Romulus, not having latest version of flashplayer (they are running Romulinix), get paranoid that it is secret invasion plans, makes first strike.
3. The Vulcans- instead of seeing Cochran's warp signiture get spammed with OMGZ!!!!11!PINK PONIES and Goatse.cx, turn tail and first contact is instead by 1 and 2 above.
4. The G'o